About the job

Job summary

These positions are based nationally.

Job description

We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging. To find out more about how we do this visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity.

Directorate:    Digital Technology Services (DTS)

Pay Band:     Grade 7 

Job Title:     6 x Senior Developer in Test 
    
Location:    London / National

Successful applicants will be expected to be office based 2 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 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).

DDaT:
Roles will be recruited using a combination of the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) and Success Profile Frameworks. Using DDaT we will then determine if you will be paid an additional allowance, on top of your basic salary.  This role is within the Technical Job Family, is a Software developer role at Senior Developer level, but carries the title Senior Developer in Test 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 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

Skills and Experience:

•    Sound knowledge in Java for development of enterprise and public facing applications
•    Strong automation skills at both the service and UI level
•    Experience in working with developers to plan and design automation test frameworks and test suites.
•    Sound knowledge of HTTP, at least one web development framework (for example Spring or Jersey), Angular (React or Vue.js may be considered) and JavaScript
•    Sound knowledge of at least one RDBMS (PostgreSQL or similar), XML and JSON
•    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 (docker, k8s, infrastructure as code) and techniques 
•    Experience of mentoring, coaching or leading other Developers in Test
•    Experience of performance testing or performance monitoring tools
•    Experience of designing and implementing non-functional tests that will ensure there is coverage of NFRs - specifically performance
•    Strong experience of working with delivery teams using Scrum or Kanban techniques
•    Experience of working closely with the Ops team to help specify test environments
•    Takes an active interest in the testing community via blogs, forums, and conferences
•    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

Key responsibilities:

•    Establish, monitor, and maintain automated testing. Amending, refactoring, and documenting Automation code to build and maintain automated frameworks, and as required leading on these activities. Adhere to internal process and procedures, promoting and advising others which software development testing standards/processes/procedures apply.
•    Improve existing test automation or design more efficient ways of testing. You will look to improve existing test code or design tests that are faster or more comprehensive relative to existing tests. 
•    Monitor builds and trends across the teams (i.e., sauce lab fails, performance degradation, security issues etc.)
•    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 lead code reviews of colleagues' work.
•    Support Infrastructure testing and OAT and DevOps maintenance activities
•    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.
•    Plan the testing 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 testing process. Choose the most appropriate from a variety of methods of prototyping, actively solicit prototypes with others.
•    Support and maintain software as required, including in the live environment. Use modern tools to identify, troubleshoot and fix faults effectively and thoroughly. Package and deploy software built. Some activities may be outside the core office hours (in-line with the organisation's policy for OOH).
•    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.
•    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.
•    Guide and advise others on technical areas of testing, 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.

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.
•    Technical – As demonstrated in your application form and interview. Successful sift candidates will be invited to a pre-interview technical on-line test. If successful you will move on to the interview stage, which will consist of a coding challenge that you will have time to prepare for. 
•    DDaT Assessment – During the interview, you will be assessed against the DDaT framework
•    Behaviours – You will be required to provide evidence of the following key behaviours at Level 4
•    Behaviours – We will be using the behaviours below.

o    Communicating and Influencing
o    Making Effective Decisions

Person specification

Please refer to job description.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £54,358, HM Prison & Probation Service contributes £15,165 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.https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. 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.