HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Directorate: Digital Technology Services (DTS)

Pay Band: SEO

Job Title: Software Developer x6

Location: National

Successful applicants will be expected to be office based 3 days per week in any HMCTS Office (subject to business availability).  

Term: Permanent

Interview: Video conference via Teams

Level of Clearance: To apply for this role, you will be required to successfully complete Security Clearance (SC) level as a condition of appointment. 

Important salary details:

New recruits to the Civil Service joining HMCTS are expected to join at the band minimum.

Existing Civil Servants applying on promotion, will usually be appointed on the salary minimum of the new pay band, or receive an increase of 10 percent on the current base salary, whichever is higher (This is restricted to the pay maximum of the new band).

Roles will be recruited using a combination of Government Digital and Data (GDD) Profession Capability Framework and Success Profile Frameworks. Using GDD we will then determine if you will be paid an additional allowance on top of your basic salary. This role is aligned to the Technical Job Family, is a Software Developer role at Senior Developer level, but carries the title Software Developer within DTS.

Introduction:

These are exciting times at HM Court and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). As an agency of the MoJ, we support the judiciary across England and Wales to deliver justice by running courts and tribunals and processing outcomes, and we are looking for talented people to help us achieve our ambitions. It will be challenging, important and rewarding.

HMCTS Digital and Technology Services (DTS) is a specialist technology directorate which provides support to HMCTS in the use of IT and Digital.

DTS is creating a place in which it is great to do work and part of our offer is brilliant training opportunities and support from expert colleagues. As well as that you’ll find flexible working, an inclusive culture and a place where your opinion is valued.

Please follow the link below for further information about HMCTS. www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service

Job Description:

As a Software Developer you will work with a wide range of stakeholders such as user researchers, product managers, designers, business analysts, content specialists, delivery managers and digital architects, all of whom share a vision for making better government through smarter use of technology. You will innovate to radically transform public services for the better.

The development squad you are placed on will be agreed closer to your start date, but examples of products can be found in our GitHub repositories:

https://github.com/ministryofjustice

https://github.com/hmcts

https://github.com/CJSCommonPlatform

You can find more information about our ways of working in the HMCTS Way: https://hmcts.github.io

Technologies we rely heavily on (Core Tech Stack):

Java to write our backend services

Node.js to write our frontend services

Power Platform for low-code development

Jenkins for CI/CD

Dynatrace for application monitoring

Kubernetes and Docker to run our services

Azure for most of our infrastructure

Terraform for infrastructure as code

Postgres and Redis as our databases.

GOV.UK Design System for our web interfaces

Macs to do all the above

In addition, we use a range of other technologies and continue to evolve by employing new technologies that help us deliver better services to our users

As a Software Developer in HMCTS you will:

• Write, amend, refactor and document code to build complex programs/scripts, and as required leading on these activities. Adhere to internal process and procedures, promoting and advising others which software development standards, processes and procedures to apply.

• Constantly seek to learn and further develop your skills as required for your role. Monitor changes in the tech stack you use and alert on any major changes affecting our software. Adhere to industry's best practices, produce well-engineered modern products and guide others to do so in a highly competently manner.

• Ensure that products are secure, engineered to mitigate security threats and have the necessary security controls in place. Ensure that information is handled with confidentiality and integrity, and that products are compliant. Identify and raise risks and support Information Assurance activities.

• Support and maintain software as required, including in the live environment. Use modern tools to effectively and thoroughly identify, troubleshoot and fix faults. Package and deploy software built. Some activities may be outside the core office hours (in-line with the organisation's policy for OOH).

• Plan the development on sets of related stories and coordinate integration tasks across systems. Contribute to selection of the software development approach (plan-driven, iterative/agile etc.) for projects. Identify process optimisation opportunities with guidance and support activities to improve the development process. Choose the most appropriate from a variety of methods of prototyping, actively solicit prototypes with others.

• Define, analyse, plan, forecast, measure, maintain and improve all aspects of the availability of services. Control and manage service availability to meet the needs of the business in a cost-effective manner. This includes managing the capability, functionality and sustainability of service components (for example, hardware, software, network resources and software/infrastructure as a service).

• Design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity. Take designs through the required governance. Review designs of others to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology. Identify, record and escalate tech debt and medium-level risks.

• Define the integration build. Coordinate build activities across systems and undertake and support integration testing activities.

• Take a test-driven approach to software development, write complex automation test scripts and participate in testing. Participate in code reviews of own work and leads code reviews of colleagues' work.

• Guide and advise others on technical areas you have expertise in, modern development standards and approaches to understand user stories. Coach and mentor more junior colleagues. Lead on and participate in recruitment as required.

• Participate in and lead on procurement activities as required.

• Translate user stories to a proposed design and develop software to meet user needs. Collaborate with user researchers, represent users internally and champion user research to focus on all users.

Skills & Experience:

• Sound knowledge of programming languages and tools for development of enterprise and public facing applications utilising our core stack.

• Sound knowledge of HTTP, Spring web development framework and at least one RDBMS (for example PostgreSQL, Redis)

• Sound knowledge in a wide range of technologies and libraries used in an enterprise, such as logging and monitoring, ORM, authentication/authorisation, cloud hosting environments, systems integration, source control, package management etc.

• Experience of mentoring, coaching or leading other developers (at work or in meetups etc)

• Experience of working with modern tools and techniques

• An understanding of common security issues and how to mitigate them

• You will also want to make a positive impact on the communities we serve

• You are looking for new technical and leadership challenges

• You thrive when you work as part of a team

• You enjoy learning and helping others

• You hold yourself and others to a high standard

• You solve problems in a systematic way

Person Specification

We’re seeking a full stack software developer with the ability to develop and deploy high-quality code. The ideal candidate will have:

• Experience in a modern object-oriented programming language and knowledge of our tech stack (Java and JavaScript).

• Experience in the development of enterprise and public facing applications

• Sound knowledge of HTTP, at least one web development framework (for example Spring Boot or Angular) and at least one relational database system (e.g. PostgreSQL).

• Sound knowledge in a wide range of technologies and libraries used in an enterprise, such as logging and monitoring, ORM, authentication/authorisation, cloud hosting environments, systems integration, source control, package management etc.

• Experience of working with modern tools and techniques

• An understanding of common security issues and how to mitigate them

Application process:

The following areas of Success Profile Framework will be used to assess and score your application during the sift, and interview.

• Experience - As demonstrated in your application form.

• Coding Challenge - HMCTS Case Management Coding Challenge. Please complete the coding task below and provide the link to your code repository in your Statement of Suitability: https://github.com/hmcts/dts-developer-challenge

Please note the Civil Service application process is name-blind, so ensure that the repository containing your code does not include any personal information that would identify you.

• Technical: As demonstrated in your application form and interview. During the interview, you will be assessed against the Government Digital and Data (GDD) Capability Framework.

• Capability Skill 1: Programming and build

• Capability Skill 2: Systems integration

• Capability Skill 3: Service support

• Capability Skill 4: Information security

• Capability Skill 5: Systems design

• Coding Challenge - if successful at sift, you will move on to the interview stage, which will include an extension exercise to the coding challenge you submit in your Statement of Suitability.

• Behaviours - You will be required to provide evidence of the following key behaviours at SEO level:

• Communicating and Influencing

• Developing Self and Others

Level of Clearance - To apply for this role, you will be required to successfully complete Security Clearance (SC) level as a condition of appointment. To meet these requirements, you will normally need to have been resident in the UK for at least: 5 years 

Reserve List:

HMCTS run a Reserve List, where candidates who are unsuccessful at interview by only a few points, can be offered other roles, at the same band, for up to 12 months. You will be able to view your status via the application screen. If you have been added to the Reserve List, your status will show either Merit or Reserve list. Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrated the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and potentially offer you the position without the need for a further application.