About the job

Job summary

Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference?

Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence? 

Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.

• Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
• Our Mission - Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability. 

DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society. 

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.

DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the North West, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2026. 

Come and join the DBS community today!

Job description

As a Senior Developer in the Defence Business Services (DBS) Automation Garage you will be expected to work collaboratively in small, multi-disciplinary agile scrum teams, taking Discovery Documents for Robotic Process Automations, PowerApps, etc, created by the Business Analysts, through development, testing, user acceptance testing, to live running operation.  In addition, you will be expected to investigate and assess new technologies that may offer benefits to organisation if adopted. 

Responsibilities:

• Planning, designing, leading and ensuring quality of RPA automations, PowerApps and new technologies, in small to mediums size projects 
• Implementing standardised processes and continually improvements 
• Developing knowledge and keeping up to date on vendor offerings across multiple technology areas including RPA, Chatbot, Power Platforms, Cognitive, Cloud and Intelligent Automation  
• Researching and adopting solutions to address constraints with the technology, hosting or applications utilised in RPA; 
• Assessing and championing the adoption of new technologies to meet the organisations automation requirements; 
• Seen by customers and team as the automation expert, delivering Show and Tells to Key Stakeholders or potential adopters of RPA; 
• Attendance at industry demonstrations and conferences, with other senior members of the Garage; 
• Management responsibility for Developers and Junior Developers, assigning work and monitoring their progress. 
• Support the implementation of the Automation Garage’s strategy and platform; 
• Building strong relationship with technical teams both within DBS and wider MOD as well as outside organisations, to enable technical issues to be swiftly investigated and resolved

Person specification

Programming and build (software engineering). You can collaborate with others when necessary to review specifications; use the agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium-to-high complexity, using the right standards and tools (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

Development process optimisation. You can identify process optimisation opportunities with guidance and contribute to the implementation of proposed solutions (Skill Level Required: Working)

Modern standards approach. You can competently apply a modern standards approach and guide others to do so (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

Information security. You can understand information security; design solutions and services with security controls embedded, specifically engineered with mitigation of security threats as a core feature (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

Prototyping. You can approach prototyping as a team activity, actively soliciting prototypes and testing with others; establish design patterns and iterate them; use a variety of prototyping methods and choose the most appropriate (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

User focus. You can collaborate with user researchers and can represent users internally; explain the difference between user needs and the desires of the user; champion user research to focus on all users; prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so; offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to use (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

Service support. You can identify, locate and fix faults (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

Availability and capacity management. You can manage service components to ensure they meet business needs and performance targets (Skill Level Required: Working)

Systems design. You can design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity; select appropriate design standards, methods and tools, and ensure they are applied effectively; review the systems designs of others to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

Systems integration. You can define the integration build; co-ordinate build activities across systems; understand how to undertake and support integration testing activities (Skill Level Required: Practitioner)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,080, Ministry of Defence contributes £11,631 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Please ensure that at the application and interview stages of the campaign you review the Success Profiles Framework to assist you in the demonstration of your skills and experience.

Your suitability for the role will be assessed using the Success Profile elements that have been chosen for this campaign. Each element will be scored accordingly, and the successful candidate will be appointed on merit.

Applications will be sifted on all Success Profile elements, but in the event of a high number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted on the following success profile elements:

Primary: Technical - Senior Software Developer - Programming and build (software engineering)

Secondary: Experience - Personal statement

In this instance the remaining elements will be tested at interview.

At application stage you will be assessed against the following:

• Technical - Senior Software Developer - Information security
• Technical - Senior Software Developer - Programming and build (software engineering)
• Technical - Senior Software Developer - Systems design
• Technical - Senior Software Developer - User focus
• Experience - CV
• Experience - Personal statement

At interview 1 stage you will be assessed against all the following:

• Experience - Personal statement
• Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• Behaviour - Communicating and Influencing

Those that pass the minimum score criteria will then be invited to Interview 2 where you will be assessed on the following for the application and the Digital Skills Allowance Assessment:

• Technical - Senior Software Developer - Information security
• Technical - Senior Software Developer - Programming and build (software engineering)
• Technical - Senior Software Developer - Systems design
• Technical - Senior Software Developer - User focus

In the rare case where individuals have exact matching scores, the order of merit will be determined based on the behaviour scores at interview in the following order:

• 1 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - Programming and build (software engineering)
• 2 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - User focus
• 3 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - Information security
• 4 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - Systems design
• 5 - Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
• 6 - Behaviour - Communicating and Influencing
• 7 - Experience - Personal statement

If candidate scores are still exact, the merit order will then be determined on the sift score in the following order:

• 1 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - Programming and build (software engineering)
• 2 - Experience - Personal statement
• 3 - Experience - CV
• 4 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - User focus
• 5 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - Information security
• 6 - Technical - Senior Software Developer - Systems design

We want to offer opportunities to all who are successful at interview for our roles, but this isn’t always possible, so we do hold candidates on an active reserve list for 12 months. – this will need amending to 3 months for internal or across government roles

Application sifting is scheduled to take place in early January.

Interviews 1 and 2 are currently taking place remotely via Ms Teams and will be conducted mid January.

A minimum of 2 full working days’ notice will be provided for interviews.We endeavour to stick to these dates, but these are subject to change around business needs.

To assist with your application please find attached below: 

1.     DBS Candidate Information Guide -   Working for Defence Business Services - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

2.     Technical framework - https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/index.html

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.  

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk 

MOD Recruitment Satisfaction Survey – we may contact you regarding your experience to help us improve our customer satisfaction. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. You may however be given the opportunity to provide additional information to help us improve our service which includes the collection of some personal data as defined by the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The MOD Privacy Notice sets out how we will use your personal data and your rights.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical. 
The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.