Software Developer
Location: National
Closing Date: 12th July
Interviews: w/c 21th July TBC
Grade: SEO
(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)
Salary:
London: £47,657 - £56,050 (may include an allowance of up to £8,393)
National: £41,463 - £51,675 (may include an allowance of up to £10,212)
Working pattern: Full-time, part-time, flexible working
Contract Type: Permanent
*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
We’re recruiting for Software Developers here at Justice Digital, to be part of one of our warm and collaborative teams.
This role aligns against Software Developer from the Government Digital and Data Framework
You’ll be working with other developers on our tech stack and will have lots of opportunities to learn 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:
Reducing reoffending rates by improving the scheduling of prison visits in our Prisons team
Enhancing access to justice by developing a service to apply for legal aid in the Legal Aid Agency
Building a no-code platform for publishing government forms and services to the internet in the MoJ Forms team
Improving outcomes for offenders by building tools to manage rehabilitation services in our Probation team
Maintaining transparency of government by managing freedom of information requests and parliamentary questions in our Central team
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
We rely on Ruby, Java or Python 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, including how tools like Express.js can support server-side rendering as part of the interface layer. 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 a 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.
We currently have over 150 developers who make up the engineering community across the MoJ. You will be encouraged to play an active role in the engineering community and culture, and take part in informal support networks with your peers.
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.
As a Software Developer at the MoJ you will have technical and people responsibilities.
Technical:
Helping to design, build and maintain APIs, services and systems
Working on pre-existing codebases
Improving the resilience and stability of software
People:
Supporting Senior Developers in building high performing teams
Help 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!
Experience building and maintaining server-side applications, with solid understanding of at least one programming language
Comfortable working across both front-end and back-end systems.
You write clean, maintainable code and apply practices that support change, scalability, and long-term delivery
Confidence in writing and reasoning about automated tests and making decisions about what and how to test
Practical experience working in Agile teams, including how planning, team roles, and delivery processes shape how you work
Experience in contributing to technical discussions and solving problems as part of a team
Actively collaborates and shares knowledge with others, learning alongside teammates.
Able to think beyond just your code, understanding how your work fits into and supports wider team goals, and contributes to delivering value for the organisation.
Motivated by continuous improvement, actively seeking to grow your skills, learn new technologies.
Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance.
We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on 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 Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.
“The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy. “
37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms
Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow
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.
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.
Candidates must submit a CV and Statement of Suitability (no more than 750words). Your statement should tell us about a development project you've worked on that stands out to you and best demonstrates your skills and suitability for this role based on the essential criteria.
Candidates who do not submit both a CV and a separate statement of suitability will not be invited to interview.
In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession 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
Seeing the Bigger Picture
A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above.
Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held via video conference. As part of the interview, there will be a technical exercise in the form of a code review. You can choose from the following languages: Python, Java, or JavaScript. You'll be asked to imagine you're part of a development team reviewing a submitted piece of code.
Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on your development experience will be conducted prior to the sift.
Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.
A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.
Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact digitalanddatarecruitment@justice.gov.uk
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact
Chair members:
patrick.sweeting@justice.gov.uk
phil.payne@justice.gov.uk