About the job

Job summary

Why JNCC?

We’re small enough (c.300 staff) that your voice is heard by everyone including the CEO, but big enough that we have all the skills, resources and people you’ll need to get the job done. All our staff are passionate about conservation and making a difference to the world we live in. We have a very flexible, inclusive and welcoming organisational culture. Our Executive Management provides employees with the freedom and tools you will need, and our friendly team will assist you in your role.  

Post background

This exciting new post will lead a team of application developers to deliver innovative environmental data products, cutting-edge earth observation solutions, and bespoke applications to meet the evolving needs of JNCC. The postholder will join the Digital and Data Solutions Team which works across the organisation to deliver application development alongside data engineering, project management, data protection, and information management expertise.

The postholder will lead a team of four developers, facilitating new development by selecting appropriate technologies, managing Agile delivery of work, and liaising with customers internal and external to the organisation. Alongside this, you will work with the team to support, monitor and maintain existing applications and tools. 

You will be leading a portfolio of projects that is highly varied and dynamic. You might find yourself working on utilising public cloud services and national supercomputing resources or helping to develop JNCC’s approach to data and metadata management. Working with our technical project managers and key scientists, the successful candidate will help organise development time and assignments as well as advising on technical aspects of project delivery.

Within the team there are lots of opportunities to work on projects of interest and collaborate with like-minded developers and data engineers. An interest in nature conservation and ecological knowledge would be helpful to you but are not a requirement.

Job description

Post Duties 

• Line Manage four developers including, but not limited to, day to day assignments, prioritisation of tasks, performance reviews and professional development.

• Coordinate and deliver a small portfolio of highly technical projects from start to finish. In many cases, this will include enabling the application development team to deliver work through facilitation of technical decision making, task assignment, management of risks and blockers.

• Engage with users and key suppliers to firm up specifications, manage expectations, conduct user acceptance testing and ensure new applications are fit for purpose.

• Support, monitoring and maintenance of our suite of existing tools and applications, including managing the utilisation of AWS and JASMIN (storage and data analysis supercomputer platform) environments.

• Develop solutions to produce environmental data products at scale.

• Advise leadership on technical strategy and help shape organisational approach to cutting edge system development.

• Manage the digital development budget in line with JNCC monitoring and reporting requirements. This may include supporting procurement processes for systems and licences to inform project plans and existing system maintenance.

• Keep abreast of new IT technologies and techniques and complete individual Continuous Professional Development (CPD) to maintain technical currency in languages and methodologies.

Person specification

Please demonstrate in your personal statement the experience and behaviours listed.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £38,320, Joint Nature Conservation Committee contributes £10,347 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.

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a statement of suitability. In your statement, refer to the experience and behaviours on the Job description.

Please use the STARR technique

• Situation: Set the stage. 
• Task: Explain where you fit in. 
• Action: Describe each step. 
• Results: Impress with your achievements.
• Reflection: what have you learned 

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.