About the job

Job summary

GDS works at the very centre of government to make user-focused digital transformation happen. We build and maintain common platforms, products and tools for others to use and create great public services that are accessible, inclusive and easy to use. We also work with departments to identify patterns, share learning and create change to make government more efficient.

There are two Technical Architect roles available: one on GOV.UK Pay, and one on GOV.UK Notify.

GOV.UK Pay

GOV.UK Pay lets service teams across the public sector take online and over the phone card payments from their users quickly and easily. It also helps them manage their income, issue refunds and run financial reports. It provides a simple, accessible and secure payment experience to millions of people.

Since its launch over 7 years ago, use of GOV.UK Pay has grown rapidly. Today over 350 organisations use it to take payments for over 950 public services. We’ve processed over 70 million transactions with a value of over £4.4 billion. GOV.UK Pay is expanding to support more ways to take payments, including mobile wallets and Open Banking, and to allow deeper integrations with finance systems. The next few years are an opportunity to radically improve how the public sector handles payments.

GOV.UK Notify

GOV.UK Notify makes it easy for public sector service teams to send emails, text messages and letters. GOV.UK Notify is used by a wide range of teams, from government departments to county councils, NHS trusts to GP surgeries, and fire services to ambulance trusts. It is used in a huge variety of ways, including to alert people to flood warnings, remind soldiers of their medical appointments, update people on their passport applications or inform prison wardens of their rotas. In the last 7 years, use of GOV.UK Notify has grown exponentially. Today, more than 1,400 organisations use it and we’ve sent over 8 billion notifications.

Job description

As a GDS Technical Architect, you’ll share the responsibility for the digital transformation of government. You’ll ensure a project’s overall technical design meets user needs and acceptance criteria, whilst conforming to time and budget constraints. You’ll thrive using agile methods and enjoy working collaboratively with departments and multidisciplinary teams. Above all, you’ll want to make government better, which may sometimes involve challenging the status quo.

As a Technical Architect, you’ll:

• design technical services or plan system integration, selecting necessary platforms and technologies to meet project requirements and user needs
• provide technical leadership and consultancy to both internal and external development teams, ensuring designs & solutions are fit for purpose, whilst meeting time and budget restraints
• build and maintain technical roadmaps, looking ahead for future opportunities or blockers, and ensuring decisions by development teams align with the strategy
• encourage communication across multiple development teams to identify strategic requirements and dependencies
• help develop services by contributing code, testing technologies and producing rapid prototypes
• be involved in the wider software engineering community, including cyber security and operations teams, identifying good practices to adopt and sharing your experiences, eg through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc
• enable a positive technical culture, applying agile methods to development and completing quality assurance practices
• working with others to set standards and ensure delivery targets are met
• ensure delivery is aligned with the GDS Way and work with others across GDS to keep that up to date and relevant
• advise product managers on the estimated effort and technical implications of current user stories, as well as those in the backlog
• be involved in helping recruiting technical architects and other technologists, where appropriate, helping sift and interview
• help colleagues with their career development, coaching and managing more junior staff members

As a Technical Architect on GOV.UK Pay, you’ll:

• lead on the technical design for our upcoming Pay by Bank work 
• improve our data model, especially around the representation of public sector organisations
• help GOV.UK Pay integrate more closely with other Digital Service Platforms products such as GOV.UK Forms and GOV.UK Notify
• help review and improve our security strategy
• work with GOV.UK Pay technologists to improve our processes, tooling and technical decision making

As a Technical Architect on GOV.UK Notify, you’ll:

• help GOV.UK Notify explore and possibility implement new notification channels
• support the GOV.UK Notify Infrastructure team with making architectural choices and improvements to our AWS infrastructure
• help GOV.UK Notify integrate more closely with other Digital Service Platforms products such as GOV.UK Forms and GOV.UK Pay
• work with GOV.UK Notify technologists to improve our processes, tooling and technical decision making

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:

• experience leading technical teams and delivering user-focused services
• awareness and understanding of a range of tech stacks and the ability to take a balanced approach to technology selection
• strong software development and application architecture experience, with good knowledge of cloud technologies, open source technologies, testing, and at least one programming language such as Java, Ruby, Python or JavaScript (GOV.UK Pay uses Java, GOV.UK Notify uses Python)
• experience designing and building secure and scalable user focussed systems and an awareness of emerging security issues
• understanding of how to influence senior management and communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences
• understanding of agile environments, continual delivery techniques and devops cultures
• understanding of how governance works in agile, multidisciplinary team environments
• understanding of how to prioritise work in a fast, user centric, environment
• interest in forming government best practices, standards and policies

If you meet a few of those criteria but think that you might not meet every last one then don’t let that stop you from submitting an application.

Benefits

The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for The King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• paid volunteering leave
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

GDS offers hybrid working for all employees. This means that everyone does some working from home and also spends some time in their local office. You’ll agree to your hybrid working arrangement with your line manager in line with your preferences and business needs.

Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Things you need to know

Selection process details

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 30 minute first stage interview
• a 1.5 hour second stage interview

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• Seeing the big picture
• Changing and improving
• Making effective decisions
• Communicating and influencing
• Working together
• Managing a quality service

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework for the Technical Architecture role:

• Governance and assurance
• Making and guiding decisions
• Strategy
• Turning business problems into technical design
• Understanding the whole context

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status.

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.