About the job

Job summary

We are building a family at Scottish Government, not just jobs. Your role as a part of our software engineering family, will be essential to our success.

Would you like to build and run the platforms that underpin public services in Scotland? In the cloud and platform services division, our mission is to design, build, and operate a Scottish Government platform for Public Sector bodies across Scotland, providing: Cloud Computing, Digital Payments, and Digital Identity. By establishing common platforms, we support organisational transformation, allowing bodies to deliver their services more efficiently, more quickly, and at scale.

As a Software Engineering Manager, you will act as technical platform owner, providing a productive working environment that motivates and supports colleagues' wellbeing and professional development. Providing technical leadership to the delivery team you will define/contribute to the long-term strategic direction of the platform and digital service.

How does it feel to work here?

Lead Cloud Engineer - "The SG Cloud 1st team is a fantastic place to both use and expand your cloud knowledge alongside other experiences and passionate people. The Team are friendly and pull together to achieve our goals. You feel like you are part of something and that you are contributing to something special."

Hear from colleagues discussing Digital Careers at Scottish Government.

How will I spend my time?

As a software engineering manager you will lead the development of our secure, scalable, and resilient software platforms. You will use your expertise to set the technical direction of the solution, review code, line manage and mentor members of your team to make sure a high standard is maintained. As part of a cross functional agile team, you will be unblocking the team and making sure they have the information and tools to build the right software and run it with high availability. Working with product and design leads to ensure delivery of the right solution.

You would be joining at an exciting time where we are investing in growing our team and supporting colleagues’ professional development to broaden their skills while increasing their depth of knowledge with the latest technologies.

What technologies will you use?

Our services and applications run on AWS using Kubernetes, backend services are written in Java, with Node JS and Typescript used for front end applications. Persistence is provided by S3, DynamoDB and Redis. We use Grafana/Prometheus for metrics and dashboarding; and Gitlab for CI/CD. The cloud platform team operate both an AWS and Azure platform.

Job description

Your responsibilities will include:

A lead developer leads development on one or a small number of related project teams.

At this role level, you will:

• Guide the ways in which the team works
• Be proficient in a wide range of technical systems
• Be involved in identifying appropriate technology and approaches, deciding when software should be written
• Contribute to the developer community
• Provide technical leadership, coaching and mentoring your team
• Promote knowledge sharing and adoption of good practice

Additional Duties

 Strategic

• Set the technical strategy and architectural vision for one or more project teams
• Work with product management and stakeholders to define the roadmap for one or more project teams
• Contribute to the overall technical and software engineering strategy for the program
• Develop the wider engineering profession in the directorate through work on: recruitment (job descriptions, interviewing, employer brand development etc.); identifying and delivering tool and process improvements that benefit more than the program; improving team diversity and inclusion
• Plan the hiring and skills development of team members to ensure capabilities continue to be relevant for future work
• Regularly reflect on the capabilities and maturity of the software engineering team and lead the process of continuous improvement

Operational

• Provide technical representation of the work of your team(s) in meetings with external groups including user groups and overall programme governance
• Work with the design & UX team to ensure the team(s) develop usable, accessible solutions that meet users’ needs and exceed user expectations
• Act as the lead technical contact with partners to agree the split of responsibilities and integration of systems and processes
• Collaborate with external suppliers to ensure that their system architectures meet our requirements, including: security, privacy and data standards
• Co-ordinate work and collaborate with security professionals to ensure the secure development and operation of the system. Including contributing to security architecture, business impact and risk appetite modelling, and development of system security policies
• Provide technical leadership during project inception to inform decisions such as build vs. buy, use of low code, and which team(s) should be involved in the implementation
• Champion automation, continuous delivery and continuous deployment practices to consistently deploy high quality software
• Lead the design and implementation of robust, scalable, open and secure applications and services ensuring delivery to the highest standard
• Line manage software engineers including regular one-to-ones, on-boarding, and personal development
• Lead the operation of production systems including co-ordinating support, ensuring sufficient monitoring and alerting is in place; defining communications and processes between security operations and the team who build and develop the system
• Provide leadership during incidents with live systems, with clear communication to stakeholders; and identifying and supporting the people who are resolving the issue.

What impact will I have?

Looking back on a successful first year you can take pride knowing your work has made life easier for public sector colleagues and the people of Scotland; delivering a scalable, modern, accessible platform which is valued by a rapidly ever-growing user base. Provided technical leadership to your delivery team by enhancing their skills and knowledge with the latest technologies.

Person specification

No formal qualifications are required for this role. We would love you to apply if you meet the following essential criteria. If you would like to chat first, please get in touch

• Experience setting the technical strategy and architectural vision for one or more project teams. This will include providing technical leadership during project inception to inform decisions such as build vs. buy, use of low code, and which team(s) should be involved in the implementation.
• Experience leading a software development team in continuous improvement across key areas including Software Development, Deployment and Delivery. This will include team activities (e.g. training days, workshops) and line management including regular one-to-ones, on-boarding, and personal development
• Experienced in acting as the lead contact with partners ensuring the engineering team is able to deliver on agreed roadmaps
• Experience successfully developing your team and wider engineering profession ensuring capabilities continue to be relevant to future work

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £71,967, Scottish Government contributes £19,431 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

Sift and Interview dates TBC

Please apply using the link provided

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

Security

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.