Software Engineer - ONS - HEO

Job summary

Are you a Software Engineer looking for a role where you can make a real impact, using your technical experience to enable us to deliver our Statistics for the Public Good strategy for the UK?

Would you like to progress your software career?   

We are looking for Software Engineers to join our active community of technical professionals to add value to our talented teams.

Job description

If your passion for programming is matched by your skill for agile working and your experience in coding is matched by your love for working collaboratively then we have a role for you.

As a software engineer you will share knowledge of tools and techniques; identifying and sharing good practices and collaborating to improve the capability of the team.

You will have the ability to :

• Design software products to serve a variety of user needs and enhancing existing software products to meet evolving user needs.
• Ensure a quality software product is delivered and maintained, alongside assessing and peer review the work of others.
• Be a practitioner in the use of technologies and tools, evaluating and adopting those appropriate for the environment.
• Support an environment where continuous or “on demand” delivery can be enabled if needed by the business, using effective delivery and deployment techniques.
• Support services, identify, locate and competently fix faults, and take proactive actions.
• Working across multiple business areas, software tools and systems and using a range of programming languages/technologies.

We have opportunities in the following areas:

Vacancy 1 Data Facilitation and Transformation Services

Our team are currently responsible for delivering the CIR, Collection Instrument Registry, we also manage the Supplementary Data Service which is responsible for Prepopulation.

We are currently undergoing a merge with several other team to make a centralised team that is responsible for how we capture and transform data within the platform, our goal is to make survey creation as self service as possible, including retrieving schemas that we can store and apply version control for people to use when they need.

Programming Languages and Tools: Python, Terraform, GitLab/GitHub, Jira, Google Cloud Platform

Vacancy 2 Statistical Production Platform

The Statistical Production Platform (SPP) is building new technology capabilities to migrate a wide range of surveys of national importance from legacy platforms. Our multi-disciplinary teams cover software engineering, system design, requirement analysis, user research, delivery management and product management, allowing us to both evolve the SPP as a product whilst meeting organisational goals through new development. We interface with both change programmes at the ONS and the wider Digital Services & Technology directorate we are part of.

Programming Languages and Tools: Python, including PySpark and Flask libraries, AWS, CI/CD, Concourse, Terraform, Docker containers for UIs, requiring HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills.

Person specification

Essential Skills Criteria

• Service support: you can help fix faults following agreed procedures, carry out agreed maintenance tasks on infrastructure, liaise between users and developers to keep everyone informed.
• Information Security: you can understand information security, design solutions and services with security controls embedded, specifically engineered with mitigation of security threats as a core feature.
• Programming and Build: you can collaborate with others when necessary to review specifications, use the agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium-to-high complexity, using the right standards and tools.
• Testing: you can use a range of technologies for both functional and non-functional testing, and are able to identify the need for, design and execute test cases using standard testing techniques.
• Communication: you are able to communicate with both technical and non-technical stakeholders in a range of settings, to enable effective collaboration.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace
• Changing and Improving

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Aligned to the technical skills of the role as detailed in the person specification, essential skills criteria section of the advert

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,452, Office for National Statistics contributes £9,401 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our 5400 valued colleagues across the business.

This role is part of the cross-government Government Digital and Data (formerly DDaT) profession framework. As a role within Government Digital and Data (formerly DDaT) at the ONS, we also offer benefits such as:

• Protected Learning Time to spend on your personal development and side-projects. 
• A supportive and active Community of Practice which you will be expected to contribute to, helping ensure you and your colleagues get the training, development and opportunities you need to progress your careers.

We are committed to supporting our people’s wellbeing by offering flexible ways of working that support a healthy work life balance. We are happy to explore opportunities with you about working flexibly in line with our hybrid working policies.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that the benefits pack attached (bottom of page) will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a member of the Business Disability Forum and a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist. 

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Security Clearance 

The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying.

A lack of UK residency in itself is not always a bar to security clearance but the Department will need to consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected. 

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.

At the point of SC application you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

Applicant support

Applicants may utilise AI resources in their submissions; ensuring all information provided is factually accurate, truthful, and original, avoiding any form of plagiarism to maintain the authenticity and credibility of the application process.

Stage 1 – Application & Sift Assessment

Assessment at application stage will be based on your CV, work history, skill and experience and personal statement. Your application should be tailored to demonstrate any skills, knowledge and experience that are relevant to the content of the role.

Your personal statement should be no longer than 1250 words. You should use this space to provide evidence for each essential and technical criteria within the person specification. As the criteria are scored, we would recommend that you give clear examples for each including the impact of your actions and set them out using the STAR acronym (Situation, Task, Action, Result).  Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage. (Further information about skill levels are available on Government Digital and Data  capability framework) 

Sift stage will be based on your work history, skills and experience and evidence given in your personal statement.

In cases where there is a high number of applications the sift pass mark may be adjusted and candidates will be invited to interview in merit order, i.e. those scoring the highest.

Stage 2 – Interview

Should you be invited to interview, you will be assessed using various assessment techniques aligned to the Civil Service Success Profiles, where you'll be assessed against all the behaviours and technical criteria outlined in the advert.

A presentation may be required at interview. Further information will be provided to successful candidates prior to interview.

Interviews will be conducted by Video.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made. Appointments will be made in merit order for each tech stack.

Important Dates:

Sift date: From 27/09/2024
Interview dates: From 14/10/2024

Dates are subject to change 

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment below. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service