Lead Developer - GDS - G6

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

   We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK's geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

   We're part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

   The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you'll be working with some of the world's most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

   Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation's highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

   This role is within the GOV.UK One Login team. We provide effective identity assurance enabling people to prove who they are online, with the necessary level of confidence to access and use particular services. Our technology stack runs on AWS, using serverless compute and storage products. Backend services and web applications are written in TypeScript/ Node.js. Our native Android and iOS mobile applications are written in Kotlin and Swift respectively.

   We're part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

   If this sounds like the next role for you on your career journey then we'd love to hear from you. 

   Find out more at the GDS Blog.

   Job description

   As a Lead Developer on GOV.UK One Login, you'll use your engineering skills and experience to support delivery of digital identity products and services. You'll work in one product area, providing leadership across multiple teams. Expect a mixture of people management, engineering design and technical strategy. You might occasionally work directly with teams through pair programming / ensemble programming where appropriate, but that will be ad-hoc rather than a regular feature of the role.

   As a Lead Developer you'll:

   • maintain and strengthen a modern engineering culture in your area, supporting continuous improvement, advocating for good practices, good design and code quality, removing toil and drag factors
   • work with other discipline leads and senior management to proactively plan technical delivery work, making sure to balance long term engineering sustainability with short term delivery pressures, advocating for technical quality and bringing practical considerations to high level designs
   • have technical responsibility for a key part of a high scale digital service delivered by multiple teams, making decisions that have a positive impact on the lives of millions of people
   • be a visible leader and role model in your area, championing diversity and inclusion in how we work
   • act as a digital ambassador across government, sharing our experiences through public speaking and blog posts
   • help GDS test and apply emerging technologies and practices, contributing to the GDS Way
   • plan and manage engineering staffing within your area, recruiting civil servants and interim/ contractor technologists
   • work with cyber security and other security colleagues to deliver secure and operational services
   • be part of our programme-wide 2nd line and/ or out of hours rotas where all technologists on the programme support our operational services and gain empathy for users and awareness of operational concerns
   • directly line-manage 2-5 technologists, supporting their career progression, development and wellbeing, and providing regular coaching and performance feedback
     Person specification

     We're interested in people who:

     • have strong software development skills in one of the JVM, Node.js/ TypeScript, Kotlin, or Swift ecosystems, with a willingness to extend your knowledge across any of them and current knowledge of modern software development practices
     • have experience of leading and improving practices such as test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration, continuous delivery and DevOps
     • have experience of being a technical leader across multiple teams or have had an impact beyond a single team
     • have experience of leading software development work in multi-disciplinary agile environments
     • have experience in development and operation of modern large scale cloud-based web services build with AWS serverless compute and storage infrastructures
     • can effectively communicate and influence at a programme leadership level and cross-GDS technical leadership level
     • are experienced in line management, helping colleagues with their career development and coaching more junior staff members
     • have a good understanding of security in operational services from end-to-end