JOB SUMMARY

Here at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG), we work on things that make a real difference to people’s lives.
Whether it’s through the homes we live in, the work of our local councils, or the communities we’re all part of, our work is at the top of the political agenda. We have ambitious and far-reaching outcomes to achieve this year and, if you’re thinking of joining us, there’s never been a more exciting time.
We have over 3,500 staff who are based in 20 offices across the UK.
MHCLG created the Funding Service and Delta to improve how billions of pounds of funding is provided to 100s of grant recipients and collect statistical data. We’re a multidisciplinary team, who work closely with statisticians, fund policy teams, the Central Grants Unit and the Common Tools programme within Digital. Our aim is for our services to be used by all new grants and data collections, introducing a better experience for users and consistency and simplification for MHCLG. We want to make the services that local government officials, analysts, data scientists, policy makers and statisticians use as good as they can be.
As a technical specialist with a wide range of experience, you’ll provide advice on technology to help us deliver simple, safe and easy to use digital systems that meet user needs. You’ll communicate with and influence all levels of responsibility, including director level.
This is both a technical and a management role. You’ll be leading a technical team, managing senior technical specialists, and will have to collaborate closely with other disciplines. You may help us recruit these specialists and ensure that we’re building our capability and capacity to continually deliver and run good digital services.
We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent the places and communities we support through our work.
Find out more about what it’s like to work in a digital, data and technology role at MHCLG including our culture, ways of working, career progression and staff benefits. You can also read the MHCLG Digital blog to learn about the work we’re doing.

JOB DESCRIPTION

As a Lead Developer, you’ll:

• lead the building of RESTful web services to serve a variety of citizen and government needs, taking responsibility for the quality of code you produce. The Funding Service is built in Python and Delta is built in Java. Both are hosted on AWS. We have plans to integrate them both into an Azure Databricks platform
• guide the ways in which the team works: providing technical leadership and coach and mentor your team, promoting knowledge sharing and adoption of good practice
• implement toolkits and APIs for purposes such as integration, performance optimisation, security and scalability
• build automated tests to support our continuous deployment environment and promote a culture of Test-Driven Development
• lead on security and privacy issues for your service (or services), working with the Technical Design Authority to mitigate risks

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

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

MHCLG HAS IMPLEMENTED THE DIGITAL AND DATA CAPABILITY FRAMEWORK FOR GROUP 1 ROLES. APPLICANTS THAT ARE SUCCESSFUL AT THE SIFT STAGE WILL BE REQUIRED TO COMPLETE A CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT AT INTERVIEW.

MHCLG will honour completed capability assessments for this role from other Government Departments for existing Civil Servants. Please provide a copy of your capability assessment to the Hiring Manager when applying. If you have any queries on pay, please contact the Hiring Manager.
Salary is determined by performance at interview, within the range advertised. Each experience or technical skill is assessed between 1-3, representing working towards, at or above the job level requirements. You are awarded a proficiency level accordingly, and you will be given opportunities at least once a year to re assess your capability and progress through the pay scale within your grade. An additional digital allowance may be payable depending on level of assessed capability.

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role.

• Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service. This role is based at MHCLG and we will be joined on the campus by:
• HM Treasury
• Department for International Trade
• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
• Office for National Statistics
• Department for Educatio