Senior Software Developer C# .NET (up to 81,736)

Help run the platforms behind over 85bn of education funding.

The Department for Education (DfE) is recruiting Senior Software Developers to play a leading role in how we build, run, and evolve the platforms that underpin one of the largest funding operations in government. Our Funding Services support the allocation and payment of funding to education providers across England, making this a critical national service where reliability, accuracy, and security are essential.

These are exciting times at the Department for Education. In 2026 we'll continue to build more user-centred digital services for all our users, children, adults, and those in social care.

As a senior software developer, you will be part of a team responsible for developing and supporting scalable, secure, and high-quality user-centric digital services. Working with senior colleagues, you will lead team members on the design and build of digital services and will work closely with colleagues within multidisciplinary agile teams, that focus on delivering work iteratively and at pace. You will innovate to radically transform how public services are delivered and improved.

As a Senior Software Developer, you will:

• Lead and provide technical support for a group of developers within a multi-disciplinary team, sometimes including line management.
• Develop software within the C# .NET technology stack to agreed standards.
• Build automated tests to support our continuous deployment processes.
• Create and sustain modern development standards, practices and techniques for our development community.
• Work with the development community to ensure we build sustainable digital products.
• Support the ongoing optimisation of automated integration processes.
• Advocate user-centric, agile approaches which focus on rapid, effective delivery of high-quality digital services.
• Support, coach and mentor less experienced developers and help them integrate into teams.
• Transform government into a modern, agile development centre by embedding practices such as test-driven development, continuous integration & delivery.
• Triage and lead support of software issues within projects you are familiar with.
• Support sharing of methods and technologies across teams, government, and the industry by participating in and organising community events.
• Help build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, and balance.

Essential Criteria

• Strong practical experience of software development using C# .NET along with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
• Experience leading within technical teams to deliver user-focused services in an agile environment.
• Strong experience of good software development practices such as Test-Driven Development, CI/CD, and DevOps as well as modern development workflows, ideally using GitHub, and experience implementing software design concepts such as OOD, SOLID and design patterns.
• Strong experience in designing and implementing RESTful APIs or other loosely coupled architectures such microservices.
• Strong understanding of web application security and experience applying it.
• Experience in sharing knowledge, coaching others, and working in a diverse and inclusive multi-disciplinary team.