Senior Software Engineer

at  University College London

ABOUT US

UCL is a world-leading teaching and research university, often ranked in the top ten in the world with an annual turnover of well over £1 billion. Part of UCL’s vision is to take on the hardest global challenges.
The Information Services Division (ISD) is the primary provider of IT services to UCL. We support and enhance learning, teaching, research and administrative processes by providing information and technology-related services to over 50,000 staff and students of UCL and associated institutions.
Our ambition is to be the leading IT services group in the HE sector and we are growing our team’s capability in experience/UX, agile development, security, cloud, service management and partnering.
We are modernising our technology foundations, digitising the processes of the university to transform experience for students and staff, and partnering across the university to drive differentiation in UCL education and research.

MANDATORY REQUIREMENTS

Ideally a bachelor’s degree in a subject with an IT, numerate, engineering or science focus (e.g. Computer Science, Physics, Engineering, Maths or related).
Full professional Proficiency in English, both written and spoken.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE WE’RE LOOKING FOR

3+ years of experience in Drupal development.
Proficiency in PHP (Object-Oriented Programming), Git (GitHub flow and common git workflows), Composer and Drush.
Solid understanding of Drupal’s API (including Symfony Components), Twig template engine, custom module and theme development.
Experience of Unit and Functional Testing including but not limited to the PHPUnit framework.
Familiarity with modern web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 and responsive design principles.
A strong grasp of JavaScript basics, including ES6+ features, Node.js and NPM is essential.
Familiarity with Storybook.js (frontend UI components builder) is desirable but not essential.
Demonstrates technical leadership with strong communication skills, adept at participating in discussions and conducting planning sessions with final users and stakeholders.
Skilled in scoping tasks for dev notes and estimations, conducting pull requests reviews, upholding best practices and coding standards and supporting growth of junior developers through mentorship.
Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to contribute to several concurrent project streams.
Practical working knowledge of DevOps tooling, such as Docker and local development environment tools such as DDEV and Lando.
Understanding of the use and application of artificial intelligence in web development and software engineering such us GitHub CoPilot.

ABOUT THE ROLE

An incredible opportunity to join the Digital Experience product development team, supporting a range of products and platforms as part of our wider Portfolio and Product Delivery team within an Agile Delivery framework. The team is responsible for how our digital products look and feel, the full user experience, and for delivering value to the user through software releases.
As a Senior Software Engineer, you will be a key player in designing, developing, and maintaining complex web applications. You will leverage your expertise in Drupal 7 and Drupal 10+, along with your skills in JavaScript, Storybook, and Twig, to create robust and scalable solutions. You will lead technical discussions, perform code reviews, and ensure best practices are followed.
Collaborating closely with designers, product managers, and other developers, you will drive the successful delivery of projects. This role offers an exciting opportunity to lead innovative initiatives and make a significant impact in a dynamic and supportive environment.
In this role, you will be instrumental in continue to evolve and scale the new version of the UCL CMS (content management system), supporting and actively contributing to the automated migration process and technical framework, alongside further integrations, new product features and releases.
You will lead on maintain and support our developer’s local development environment tool.
You will also address challenges that exceed the support team’s expertise and assist your fellow developers, fostering strong support and collaboration within the team.

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:

• 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
• Additional 5 days’ annual leave purchase scheme
• Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
• Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
• Immigration loan
• Relocation scheme for certain posts
• On-Site nursery
• On-site gym
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
• Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
• Discounted medical insuranc