HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Directorate: Digital Technology Services (DTS)

Pay Band: HEO

Job Title: Junior Software Developer - Cross Cutting

Location: London / 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

Important salary details:

New recruits to the Civil Service joining MoJ 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:

Government Digital and Data (GDD) Profession Capability Framework and Success Profiles 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, Software Developer at Junior Developer level, but carries the title Junior 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.

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 committed to being a great place to 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 at HMCTS you will work with a wide range of stakeholders such as user researchers, product managers, designers, business analysts, 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 repository: https://github.com/hmcts

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

Technologies we rely heavily on:

• 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

Key Responsibilities:

• 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 organisations 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.

• 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.

Person Specification

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

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

• 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 type of relational database e.g. PostgreSQL

• Working knowledge of some of the technologies and libraries used in an enterprise environment, such as logging and monitoring, cloud hosting, 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 an agile team

• You solve problems in a systematic way

• You enjoy learning and helping others

If you meet a few of those criteria but think that you might not meet every last one then don’t let that stop you from submitting an application.

Application process:

Coding Task

When submitting your application please complete the following coding task and provide a link to the repository:

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.

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

• Experience - As demonstrated in your application form.

• Technical - As demonstrated in your application form, coding task and interview. If successful, you will move on to the interview stage, which will include an extension exercise to the coding task you submit in your application.

• GDD Assessment - During the interview, you will be assessed against the GDD skills

and framework below.

• GDD Skill 1 - Programming and Build

• GDD Skill 2 - Information Security

• GDD Skill 3 - Modern Standards Approach

• GDD Skill 4 - Systems Integration

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

• Delivering at Pace

• Making Effective Decisions

• Level of Clearance - To apply for this role, you will be required to successfully complete Security Clearance (SC) level as a condition of appointment: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/sc-guidance-pack-for-applicants