Lead Developer

Job description

As a Lead Developer on GOV.UK One Login, you'll use your engineering skills and experience to support delivery of digital identity products and services.
You will provide leadership for multiple teams developing our current mobile app on Android and iOS, including their backend services, enabling the public to confirm their identity using evidence like UK driving licences and biometric residence permits.

We are continuously iterating on our app, focusing on success rates, onboarding more users, and adding functionality that makes identity proving easier to access.

Expect a mixture of people management, engineering design and technical strategy. From time to time it might be beneficial to pair/mob program but that will be ad-hoc rather than a regular feature of the role.

As a Lead Developer you’ll:

• strengthen engineering culture in your area, supporting continuous improvement, advocating for good practices, good design and code quality, removing toil and drag factors
• work with other discipline leads and senior management to proactively plan technical delivery work, making sure to balance long term engineering sustainability with short term delivery pressures, advocating for technical quality and bringing practical considerations to high level designs
• have technical responsibility for a key part of a high scale digital service delivered by multiple teams, making decisions that have a positive impact on the lives of millions of people
• be a visible leader and role model in your area, championing diversity and inclusion in how we work
• act as a digital ambassador across government, sharing our experiences through public speaking and blog posts

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Person specification

We’re interested in people who:

• have strong software development skills in a GDS recommended programming language (Java/Python/Ruby/Node.js and TypeScript). GOV.UK One Login uses Java and TypeScript.
• have end-to-end experience with serverless AWS products, such as AWS Lambda and DynamoDB
• have current knowledge of modern software development practices
• have experience leading and continuously improving practices such as test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration, continuous delivery and DevOps
• have experience of being a technical leader across multiple teams or have had an impact beyond a single team
• have experience of leading software development work in multi-disciplinary agile environments
• have experience building and operating robust, high scale, high performance services that have great observability characteristics

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If you meet a few of those criteria but think that you might not meet every last one then don’t let that stop you from submitting an application.

Benefits

The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for The King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• paid volunteering leave
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

GDS offers hybrid working for all employees. This means that everyone does some working from home and also spends some time in their local office. You’ll agree to your hybrid working arrangement with your line manager in line with your preferences and business needs.

Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk 

Things you need to know

Selection process details

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 20 minute phone screen where you will be asked a few role-related questions to enable us to get to know you better (may not be required depending on the volume of applications)
• a 45 minute pair programming technical exercise - you'll work with a GDS engineer to solve a self-contained programming problem given to you in writing. You'll be asked to discuss the problem with the GDS engineer, devise a plan for solving it, and then to write code to solve the problem. As well as your programming and unit testing skills we'll be evaluating how you communicate and collaborate, and how you break down the problem. You'll use your own development environment for this (conducted over video conferencing)
• a 60 minute video interview

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• working together
• communicating and influencing
• making effective decisions
• developing self and others

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework for the Lead Developer role: 

• development process optimisation
• modern standards approach
• programming and build
• systems design
• systems integration
• service support

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status.

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