Senior Developer

We are looking for people who are passionate about Engineering to join our community led team in Shared Applications Service (SAS). You will work in agile multidisciplinary teams with over 200 engineers in a modern cloud environment using the latest technologies. Our purpose as a team is to bring technical understanding in-house for over 600 Home Office applications.  

You could be creating and maintaining some of the most critical public services in the United Kingdom and transforming how we use data and technology to improve these. We are responsible for designing, building and supporting solutions to help people prove their identity or apply for visas. You could also be working on critical IT systems that support policing and counter terrorism, which helps protect UK borders.  

This role will be within the Automation Centre, part of Automation and Innovation within the Home Office which covers multiple portfolios across the organisation, providing quick solutions where theyre needed. The technology stack we use will based on project and using the correct technology. Primarily it will be a mixture of .NET, JavaScript & Python for code-based applications, with Power Platform also in use across the different squads.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. Where this is the case, employees will be expected to spend a minimum of  60% of their working time in the office.  Applicants can raise any queries to the email address at the bottom of the advert.  

Watch this short video to hear from members of Home Office Digital talking about the projects they work on and their experience of working here: Working for Home Office Digital.

The Senior Developer is key for our product delivery; you will develop core components of our solutions and help select appropriate technologies. Your subject matter expertise will enable you to operate with greater levels of autonomy and decision making. 

You will work to our technical standards writing clean, secure code following a test-driven approach, ensuring the code is open as far as possible and can be re-used. 

The Senior Developer will be expected to mentor and lead other engineers in technical tasks, as well as support recruitment and assessment activities. 

Tools and Technologies we use: 

We are keen for Engineers to continue learning new technologies, we have a large range in the Home Office including: 

• Backend: .NET / Python
• Frontend: React / TypeScript
• Data: PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Cosmos, Mongo DB, Power BI
• DevOps/Platforms: Azure & AWS with Terraform. GitHub & Azure DevOps for CI/CD
• AI: Azure Foundry, Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock
• Low-code: Microsoft Power Platform Power Apps, Power Automate and Logic Apps.

Main Responsibilities

• Delivering secure, reliable and scalable software, and supporting your team with technical tasks when needed.
• Evaluating and advising on design choices and ensuring that software is high quality and balances technical and business considerations.
• Defining and documenting test cases for new systems and maintaining live systems to ensure ongoing performance.
• Evolving new approaches/solutions with other professions through discoveries, maintaining a focus on development and deployment.
• Helping prioritise and direct technical tasks across your team, to balance new and live services.

Working Pattern

This role is available on a full-time basis with the option of compressed hours working. This role is also suitable for part-time working hours, with a minimum requirement to work 3 days per week due to business requirements.

Essential Skills

Youll have a demonstrable passion for software development, with the following skills or strong experience in: 

• Designing, reviewing and maintaining complex software applications, components, modules and documentation.(SWDN)
• Collaborating in designing, coding, testing, documents, amends, and refactoring moderately complex programs/scripts.(PROG)
• Designing test cases and scripts under own direction, mapping back predetermined criteria and reporting testing outcomes.(TEST)
• Providing technical expertise to enable the configuration of system components and equipment for system tests.(SINT)
• Managing and updating data systems, enabling the availability, integrity of searchability of information which can be utilised by many sources.(DATM)
• Maintaining application support processes, ensuring support requests are dealt with to agreed processes, investigating issues, and reporting findings where applicable.(ASUP)

SFIA capability framework 

Skills for the Information Age (SFIA) version 8 is the technical framework that sets the standard capability and development of all levels in the Home Office. This is a link to the capability framework:  All skills A - Z English (sfia-online.org).

We use set SFIA technical skills to form our interview questions and we will assess you against these technical skills during the selection process.

The essential skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework (based on the industry standard SFIA framework). Use the SFIA Levels of responsibilityto understand what would be expected for each technical skills listed below.