Developer

£61,740 - £72,466 (London) / £56,070 - £64,040 (National) Based on capability. The base salary of this grade is £61,005 for London and £55,403 for other locations.
Published on 18 February 2025 Deadline 3 March 2025

You'll be working as part of an Agile team to deliver an end to end digital service that enables civil servants to apply for spend controls approvals. The system is in its Public Beta phase, and the system is already built within the low code platform Mendix. Working in a continuous improvement oriented team, you will work to meet user needs and develop functionality to increase adoption of the service within all Government organisations, supporting the Performance and Assurance team with meeting assurance and spend assessment requirements.

You'll ensure high quality code is delivered in line with project goals and delivery cycles. You'll thrive using agile methods and enjoy working openly, collaboratively and as part of a multidisciplinary team focused on one or more projects. Above all, you'll want to make government better, which may sometimes involve challenging the status quo.

Key Responsibilities

• Work within the Mendix platform to iterate the front-end 'submitter' user journey, as well as the back-end 'assurance' system
• Support internal web services to serve a variety of citizen and government needs, taking responsibility for the quality of code you produce
• Implement toolkits and APIs for purposes such as integration, performance optimisation, security and scalability
• Build automated tests to support our continuous deployment environment
• Share knowledge of tools and techniques with your wider team, both developers and non-developers
• Act as a digital ambassador across government, supporting recruitment, identifying good practices for GDS to adopt and sharing experiences, e.g. through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc.
• Contribute to the data landscape across GDS's performance monitoring of digital government transformation by supporting cloud-based data infrastructure and developing data ingestion pipelines

Person Specification

We're interested in people who:

• Have experience with low and no-code solutions, particularly Mendix
• Understand software design principles
• Take a systematic approach to solving problems
• Have experience of using testing to validate solutions
• Understand agile environments and version control
• Have experience of working with technologies used for web applications, e.g databases, backups, CDNs and search

The Benefits of Working at GDS

• Flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• An extra day off for The King's birthday
• An in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• Career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• A focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• Job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• Advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• Cycle to work scheme and facilities
• Access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• Access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• Volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• Access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

GDS offers hybrid working for all employees. This means that everyone does some working from home and also spends some time in their local office. You'll agree to your hybrid working arrangement with your line manager in line with your preferences and business needs.

Application Process

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• A simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the "person specification" section above

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We'll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

We'll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework for the Developer role:

• Development Process Optimisation
• Information security
• Systems integration

Important Information

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years' UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

You may be aware that there are plans for the Government Digital Service (GDS) to move into the Department of Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT). This move is to bring together the digital transformation of public services into one core department. The move itself will offer huge opportunities whilst allowing DSIT to lead the way and drive forward the new Government's digital agenda.

As the announcement is relatively new, we are awaiting more detailed information. Therefore, we encourage you to apply for this role, and will keep you informed with updated information throughout the application process.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.