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.

Directorate:  Digital Technology Services (DTS)

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

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 aligned to the Technical Job Family, is a Software Developer role at Senior 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.

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 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

Key Responsibilities:

• The post holder may be expected to travel between sites, for meetings, events etc as and when required.
• Write, amend, refactor and document code to build moderately complex programs/scripts. Adhere to internal process and procedures and advising others which software development standards/processes/procedures apply.
• Constantly seek to learn and further develop your skills as required for your role. Monitor changes in the technology on which we rely and alert on any issues or trends affecting our software. Adhere to industry's best practices, produce well-engineered modern products and guide others in doing so.
• 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 and thoroughly identify and troubleshoot faults. Package and deploy software built. Some activities may be outside the core office hours (in-line with the organisation's policy for OOH).
• 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, forecast, measure, maintain, improve and as required define 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 detailed 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.
• Take a test-driven approach to software development, write automation test scripts of medium to high complexity and participate in testing. Collaborate in code reviews with others as appropriate.
• Share knowledge with developers and other coders (devops, automation testers etc.). Coach and mentor more junior colleagues and participate in recruitment activities as required.
• Participate in procurement activities as required.
• 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.

Skills & Experience:

• Experience in at least one programming language for development of enterprise and public facing applications, ideally in our core stack (Java, JavaScript, Spring, GIT, Docker, Kubernetes) but other languages and a desire to learn is acceptable.
• Working knowledge of HTTP and web development framework including Spring. Alternatively, sound experience in a similar client-server environment with web development frameworks (for example Spring, Django, Rails, Laravel, Razor, Classic ASP) and a desire to learn is acceptable.
• 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 in a 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.
• An understanding of common security issues and how to mitigate them
• You champion software maintenance, clean code and practices that make change easy
• 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

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 also include 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 3
  • Communicating and Influencing
  • 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.

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £39,868, HM Courts and Tribunals Service contributes £10,804 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. 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.