Software Engineering Lead

Discover what its like to work in a compliance role that makes an impact. Could you help us shape a stronger, fairer future? Your next career move starts here.

Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) provides HMRC with an effective investigation arm to enforce the Departments compliance policies. This enables the Department to deliver against the strategic responsibilities across all the taxes and duties it administers. This includes complex offshore evasion, international smuggling of illicit excise goods, exports of controlled weapons and technology, labour market abuses, VAT and Self-Assessment repayment frauds and a host of other fraud attacks targeted at the tax system.

FIS is home to a wide range of people with a variety of skills and professional backgrounds including accountants, cybercrime specialists, criminal justice professionals, tax professionals and operational delivery support teams to name but a few. We use a range of powers and approaches to protect funding for UK public services, investigating the most harmful tax cheats and ensuring nobody is beyond our reach.

Covert Operations, Digital Exploitation (CODE) sits within FIS. Working across Law Enforcement and government, CODE provides investigative tools and covert techniques to front-line investigations and works with key partners to develop and provide access to new technology and systems to enable investigators to respond to serious and complex tax evasion and crime.

For more information about our Directorates, Lines of Business and some of our roles, please visit the FIS Careers pages HMRC Fraud Investigation Service

The Technical Exploitation Development (TXD) team plays an integral role in His Majesty's Government's fight against serious and organised crime, supporting investigations totalling hundreds of millions of pounds each year.

The team manages a diverse and rapidly increasing product portfolio, ranging from development of covert tools for mobile device data acquisition, computer and network exploitation, building custom radio frequency hardware, to the implementation of cutting-edge data visualisation platforms.

Collaboration and capability sharing are critical to our mission so working alongside other Government and Law Enforcement agencies will ensure that no two projects nor two days are ever the same in this role. The team is recognised across the LE and UKIC community as deep matter experts in a range of complex technical specialisms including software engineering, hardware electronics, radio frequency, computer and network exploitation, and reverse engineering.

To enable the rapid prototyping and production of bespoke capabilities, the team is split into two distinct functions:

• Engineering: this function is responsible for managing the full stack development and testing of all bespoke solutions. This could include developing tools to normalise, interrogate and visualise large datasets, command and control systems, to producing plugins and modules to extend functionality of commercial and in-house built tools.
• Exploit Development: this function is responsible for conducting security research before producing specialist tools that assist in the exploitation of digital devices, encrypted communications and networks.

As an Engineering Lead you will be responsible for leading an agile team in the delivery of secure, scalable, and high-quality software products, including the rapid development of new bespoke sensitive capabilities. This role involves close collaboration with stakeholders to develop innovative solutions while maintaining the highest levels of security, confidentiality, and compliance. You will:

• Support the Head of TXD in the design and commissioning of novel projects, ensuring that these fit within the teams overarching portfolio. You will also support the Head of TXD in producing proposals for the acquisition of new tooling, capabilities and resource.
• Take ownership of engineering projects, which will include implementing project designs and managing the project team.
• You will be responsible for day-to-day management and prioritisation of the project teams work, including development, documentation, and testing.
• Manage technical risks and ensure robust documentation for projects, particularly those involving sensitive or classified information.
• Collaborate with cross-departmental stakeholders to identify, prioritise, and deliver technical solutions in high-pressure, time-sensitive contexts.
• Possess and maintain a cutting-edge technical skillset. You will be expected to directly contribute to the development of engineering projects as well as identifying and proposing new opportunities to the Head of TXD.
• Ensure that appropriate security controls are implemented within novel projects, to safeguard capabilities and promote technical security.
• Work with colleagues within the team as well as key customers, to ensure that projects are transitioned to a deliverable capability stage. This will include conducting project reviews and preparing Transfer To Ops (TTOP) documentation for Head of TXD sign-off this may consist of technical documentation, user manuals, testing strategies and other supporting documents.
• Work with infrastructure teams to deploy novel capabilities to end-users, including ensuring adherence to DevSecOps processes and defining code pipelines.
• Represent the department at cross-organisation events and working groups, showcasing the abilities and capabilities of the team and fostering strong community relationships.
• Mentor and manage a team of software engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Communicate complex topics to a high standard, in both written and verbal formats. This should ideally include experience of disseminating reporting/documentation to audiences of varying technical ability as well as seniority.
• Mentor and manage junior staff, including direct reports as well as temporary project teams.

Essential Criteria

• Strong experience in designing and building software systems using modern programming languages and frameworks with at least one of the following programming languages: Java, Kotlin, Objective-C, C, C++, Go, Rust