About the job

Job summary

This position is 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.

Senior Ruby Software Developer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 20th March

Interviews: w/c 2nd April

Grade: G7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary: London: £58,847 - £73,875 which may include an allowance up to £15,028

  National: £54,358 - £69,150 which may include an allowance up to £14,792

Working pattern: Full time, Part time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Perm

Vacancy number: 84797

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP

The Role

We’re recruiting for Senior Ruby Software Developers here at the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) at Justice Digital, to be part of one of our warm and collaborative teams.

You’ll be confident working with other developers on our tech stack and comfortable learning new technologies and systems. We use a variety of different technologies, and will work with you to place you in a team that matches your skills, interests and aspirations wherever possible.

As an example, you could be:

• Building services to enhance an application for legal aid
• Developing services to process and review applications for legal aid caseworkers
• Providing access to court data
• Building services to provide access to historic applications

You will work with user researchers, product managers, designers, delivery managers, technical architects and content specialists who share a vision for improving government through smarter use of technology.

To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025

 Our Tech Stack

We use a range of technologies and we’re looking for people who specialise in one or more of them (Ruby, Java or Python) and who love learning new languages and frameworks.

For example, we might use Ruby to write our application code, Circle CI or GitHub Actions for CI/CD, Sentry for application monitoring, Kubernetes and Docker to schedule and run our services (read about our Cloud Platform), AWS for most of our infrastructure, GOV.UK Design System for our web interfaces and use Macbook Pros.

For front-end development, we value a robust understanding of the underlying web technologies. We value well-maintained, open-source tools that can be used to produce semantic HTML, performant CSS and unobtrusive JavaScript or TypeScript, and we assess all our services against accessibility criteria.

We’re happy to help you learn our tech stack once you’re part of our team, and do not require an exact match in your experience of languages. Check out GitHub for a closer look at the technologies we use, and a complete list of services that we build and maintain. We subscribe to the manifesto for agile software development.

 Our Community

We currently have over 150 experienced developers who make up the engineering community across the MoJ. You will coach and mentor junior colleagues and take part in informal support networks with your peers. You will be encouraged to play an active role in the engineering community and culture.

We take the responsibility of supportive and effective line management very seriously. We will value the skills you bring to the civil service and help you to build on them. When the time is right we will support moving between teams or government departments to learn different technologies, or take on more responsibility, according to your career goals.

Take a look at our developer blog and Justice Digital blog to get a sense of our work and culture.

 Key Responsibilities

As a Senior Ruby Software Developer at the MoJ you will have technical and people responsibilities.

Technical:

• Securely designing, building and maintaining APIs, services and systems
• Working on pre-existing codebases
• Improving the resilience and stability of software
• Applying practices to enable continuous delivery

People:

• Developing and influencing people via line management duties, informal and formal coaching, and mentoring
• Supporting lead developers in building high performing teams
• Helping to build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Benefits

• 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours
• We are committed to nurturing our staff and provide lots of training and development opportunities with learning platforms such as: Linux Academy, O’Reilly, Pluralsight, Microsoft Learning, Civil Service Learning etc.
• 10% dedicated time to learning and development with a budget of £1000 a year per person
• Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates)
• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings’ birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
• Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app
• Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT
• Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)
• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
• 5 days volunteering paid leave
• Free membership to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT
• Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym

Person Specification 

You will:

• Demonstrate proven experience of delivering large and complex software solutions
• Demonstrate proven experience of Ruby
• Apply modern development and deployment techniques to your work, including continuous integration and continuous delivery
• Champion software maintenance, clean code, coding standards and practices that make change and consistency easier
• Write automated tests to continuously validate your work
• Thrive when you work as part of a team that abides by the spirit of the manifesto of agile software development
• Enjoy sharing knowledge and working in a multi-disciplinary team
• Hold yourself and others to a high standard
• Solve problems in a systematic way

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for BPSS clearance.

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate on the basis of culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Togetherness. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

Person specification

How to Apply

Candidates must submit a CV and an optional Statement of Suitability (up to 750 words) which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above.

In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Digital, Data and Technology Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process: 

• Working Together
• Developing Self and Others
• Making Effective Decisions

Your application will be reviewed against the Person Specification above by a diverse panel.

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 90 minute panel interview held via video conference. A brief technical test in Ruby will need to be completed in advance, as it will be discussed and developed during the interview.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on recent experience as a Developer will be conducted prior to the sift.

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.

A reserve list may be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms & Conditions which set out the way we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact recruitment@digital.justice.gov.uk

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £54,358, Ministry of Justice 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

Please refer to Job Description

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.