HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Directorate: Digital Technology Services (DTS)

Pay Band: HEO

Job Title: Junior Software Developer

Location: National

Travel between sites may be required and successful applicants will be expected to be office based 3 days per week in any HMCTS Office (subject to business availability). The frequency may increase in the future.

Term: Permanent

Interview: Video conference via Teams

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).

GDD:

Roles will be recruited using a combination of the Government Digital and Data (GDD) 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 Junior Developer level, but carries the title Software Developer within DTS.

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.

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 Junior 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 Junior Software Developer in HMCTS you will:

• Design, code, test, correct and document simple programs or scripts under the direction of others.

• Constantly seek to learn and further develop your skills as required for your role. Adhere to industry best practices, produce well-engineered modern products.

• Use security controls to build secure products and engineer to mitigate security threats. Handle information with confidentiality and integrity, work with others to ensure compliance and information assurance. Contribute to identifying risks and threats.

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

• Contribute to planning by estimating your own effort. Practice the agreed methodology and apply it to your work, identifying obvious deficiencies and supporting activities to improve the development process. Choose the most appropriate from a variety of methods of prototyping, actively soliciting prototypes from others.

• Analyse, plan, 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).

• Translate logical designs into physical designs, produce simple designs that include well understood technology and appropriate patterns. Develop software to meet approved architectural artefacts. Identify, record and escalate tech debt and low-level risks.

• Build and test simple interfaces between systems, or work on more complex integration as part of a wider team.

• Share knowledge with developers and other coders (devops, automation testers etc.).

• Translate user stories to a proposed design and develop software to meet user needs.

Skills & Experience:

• Some experience in Java for development of enterprise and public facing applications

• Working knowledge of HTTP and HTML/CSS/JavaScript

• Experience in working with structured data such as XML and JSON

• Working knowledge of at least one RDBMS (for example PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle)

• Working knowledge with some of the technologies and libraries used in an enterprise, such as logging and monitoring, cloud hosting environments, source control (Git) etc.

• An understanding of common security issues and how to mitigate them (OWASP top 10)

• You hold yourself and others to a high standard

• You care about making usable experiences, with a good understanding of front-end development concerns

• You thrive when you work as part of a team that abides by the spirit of the manifesto of agile software development

• You solve problems in a systematic way

• You enjoy learning and helping others

Person Specification

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

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

• Some experience in the development of enterprise and public facing applications.

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

• Awareness of working with modern tools and techniques.

Application process:

This role will be recruited using a combination of  Government Digital and Data (GDD) Profession Capability Framework and Success Profiles Frameworks during the sift and interview process. 

• Experience - As demonstrated in your application form.

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

• Communicating and Influencing

• Delivering at Pace

• Technical - As demonstrated at interview. During the interview, you will be assessed against the Government Digital and Data (GDD) Capability Framework. 

• Capability Framework Skill 1: Programming and build

• Capability Framework Skill 2: Systems integration

• Capability Framework Skill 3: Service support

• Capability Framework Skill 4: Information security

• Capability Framework Skill 5: Systems design

• Strengths - The interview will involve a discussion around 2 strengths.

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.