JOB SUMMARY

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

• joining up public sector services
• harnessing the power of AI for the public good
• strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
• elevating leadership and investing in talent
• funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
• committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.
We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.
Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You’ll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need
This role is within the GOV.UK One Login team. We provide effective identity assurance enabling people to prove who they are online, with the necessary level of confidence to access and use particular services. Our technology stack runs on AWS, using serverless compute and storage products. Backend services and web applications are written in TypeScript/Node.js. Our native Android and iOS mobile applications are written in Kotlin and Swift respectively.
We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
If this sounds like the next role for you on your career journey then we’d love to hear from you.
Find out more at the GDS Blog.

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’ll work in one product area, providing leadership across multiple teams. Expect a mixture of people management, engineering design and technical strategy. You might occasionally work directly with teams through pair programming / ensemble programming where appropriate, but that will be ad-hoc rather than a regular feature of the role.

As a Lead Developer you’ll:

• maintain and strengthen a modern 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
• help GDS test and apply emerging technologies and practices, contributing to the GDS Way
• plan and manage engineering staffing within your area, recruiting civil servants and interim/contractor technologists
• work with cyber security and other security colleagues to deliver secure and operational services
• be part of our programme-wide 2nd line and/or out of hours rotas where all technologists on the programme support our operational services and gain empathy for users and awareness of operational concerns
• directly line-manage 2-5 technologists, supporting their career progression, development and wellbeing, and providing regular coaching and performance feedback

WHILE WE VALUE THE USE OF AI TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE OUR DAILY WORK, WE ALSO VALUE THE PERSONAL TOUCH AND URGE APPLICANTS TO WRITE COVER LETTERS WITHOUT THE USE OF AI TO EMPHASISE THEIR OWN UNIQUE EXPERIENCES.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• have strong software development skills in one of the JVM, Node.js/TypeScript, Kotlin, or Swift ecosystems, with a willingness to extend your knowledge across any of them and current knowledge of modern software development practices

In order to assist candidates with this role, we will be holding a virtual recruitment event on Wednesday 9th July at 1pm - 2pm to go through the role in more detail. To attend the virtual recruitment event please use the link below and use the following details to join:

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)
• 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

Further information on nationality requirements

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 30 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 60 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 75 minute video intervie

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

• working together
• developing self and others
• communicating and influencin

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

• development process optimisation
• modern standards approach
• programming and build
• systems desig