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These are exciting times at the Department for Education. We are transforming to become a user centred organisation, delivering better outcomes for all our users through agile and iterative software development and continuous improvement.

You will work with user researchers, product managers, designers, business analysts, delivery managers and content specialists as part of a multi-disciplinary team to directly deliver better outcomes for users. You will innovate to radically transform how public services are delivered and improved.

Read more about software development on the DfE Digital blog.

Senior developer

You will

  • Lead and provide technical support for a large team of developers across a variety of products and services

  • Work with the development community to ensure we build sustainable digital products

  • Create and sustain modern development standards, practices and techniques for our development community

  • Support, coach and mentor less experienced developers and help them integrate into teams

  • Advocate user-centric, agile approaches which focus on rapid, effective delivery of high quality digital services

  • Help build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance

  • Transform government into a modern, agile development centre by embedding practices such as Test Driven Development, continuous deployment, and DevOps

  • Support sharing of methods and technologies across teams, government, and the industry by participating in and organising community events

You’ll have

Essential

  • Expert knowledge of software development using Ruby and the Ruby on Rails framework, C#.NET, or similar

  • Experience leading by example working with technical teams to deliver user-focused services in an agile environment

  • Experience of good practices such as Test-Driven Development, CI/CD, and DevOps as well as modern development workflows, ideally using GitHub

  • Experience of good software design concepts such as OOD, SOLID and design patterns

  • Experience of RESTful API design and loosely coupled microservices architectures

  • A good understanding of web application security and awareness of the OWASP Top 10 security vulnerabilities

  • Enthusiasm for sharing knowledge, mentoring others, and working in a diverse and inclusive multi-disciplinary team

Technical skills

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process

  • Modern standard approach - You can use a modern standards approach to solve problems, using test driven development (TDD) techniques

  • Programming and build - You can write clear, concise and maintainable code using standard tools

  • A systematic approach to problem solving