Job summary
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.
Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:
- joining up public sector services
- harnessing the power of AI for the public good
- strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
- elevating leadership and investing in talent
- funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
- committing to transparency and driving accountability
We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.
We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.
Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need
This role is within the GOV.UK One Login team. We provide effective identity assurance enabling people to prove who they are online, with the necessary level of confidence to access and use particular services. Our technology stack runs on AWS, using serverless compute and storage products. Backend services and web applications are written in TypeScript/Node.js. Our native Android and iOS mobile applications are written in Kotlin and Swift respectively.
We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
If this sounds like the next role for you on your career journey then we’d love to hear from you.
Find out more at the GDSBlog.
Job description
As a Lead Developer on GOV.UK One Login, you'll use your engineering skills and experience to support delivery of digital identity products and services. You'll work in one product area, providing leadership across multiple teams. Expect a mixture of people management, engineering design and technical strategy. You might occasionally work directly with teams through pair programming / ensemble programming where appropriate, but that will be ad-hoc rather than a regular feature of the role.
As a Lead Developer you’ll:
- maintain and strengthen a modern engineering culture in your area, supporting continuous improvement, advocating for good practices, good design and code quality, removing toil and drag factors
- work with other discipline leads and senior management to proactively plan technical delivery work, making sure to balance long term engineering sustainability with short term delivery pressures, advocating for technical quality and bringing practical considerations to high level designs
- have technical responsibility for a key part of a high scale digital service delivered by multiple teams, making decisions that have a positive impact on the lives of millions of people
- be a visible leader and role model in your area, championing diversity and inclusion in how we work
- act as a digital ambassador across government, sharing our experiences through public speaking and blog posts
- help GDS test and apply emerging technologies and practices, contributing to the GDS Way
- plan and manage engineering staffing within your area, recruiting civil servants and interim/contractor technologists
- work with cyber security and other security colleagues to deliver secure and operational services
- be part of our programme-wide 2nd line and/or out of hours rotas where all technologists on the programme support our operational services and gain empathy for users and awareness of operational concerns
- directly line-manage 2-5 technologists, supporting their career progression, development and wellbeing, and providing regular coaching and performance feedback
Person specification
We’re interested in people who:
- have strong software development skills in one of the JVM, Node.js/TypeScript, Kotlin, or Swift ecosystems, with a willingness to extend your knowledge across any of them and current knowledge of modern software development practices
- have experience of leading and improving practices such as test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration, continuous delivery and DevOps
- have experience of being a technical leader across multiple teams or have had an impact beyond a single team
- have experience of leading software development work in multi-disciplinary agile environments
- have experience in development and operation of modern large scale cloud-based web services build with AWS serverless compute and storage infrastructures
- can effectively communicate and influence at a programme leadership level and cross-GDS technical leadership level
- are experienced in line management, helping colleagues with their career development and coaching more junior staff members
- have a good understanding of security in operational services from end-to-end
Benefits
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 28.97%
- 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 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
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
Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).
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 phone screen where you will be asked a few role-related questions to enable us to get to know you better (may not be required depending on the volume of applications)
- a 60 minute pair programming technical exercise - you'll work with a GDS engineer to solve a self-contained programming problem given to you in writing. You'll be asked to discuss the problem with the GDS engineer, devise a plan for solving it, and then to write code to solve the problem. As well as your programming and unit testing skills we'll be evaluating how you communicate and collaborate, and how you break down the problem. You'll use your own development environment for this (conducted over video conferencing)
- a 75 minute video interview
While we value the use of AI technology to enhance our daily work, we also value the personal touch and urge applicants to write cover letters without the use of AI to emphasise their own unique experiences.
In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:
- have strong software development skills in one of the JVM, Node.js/TypeScript, Kotlin, or Swift ecosystems, with a willingness to extend your knowledge across any of them and current knowledge of modern software development practices
In order to assist candidates with this role, we will be holding a virtual recruitment event on Wednesday 9th July at 1pm - 2pm to go through the role in more detail. To attend the virtual recruitment event please use the link below and use the following details to join:
Join the meeting now
Meeting ID: 372 566 114 859 9
Passcode: Rz28Jk7E
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:
- working together
- developing self and others
- communicating and influencing
We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework for the Lead Developer role:
- development process optimisation
- modern standards approach
- programming and build
- systems design
Recruitment Timeline
Virtual recruitment event: Wednesday 9th July at 1pm - 2pm
Sift completion: Thursday 17th July 2025
Phone interviews: starting Thursday 24th July 2025
Technical exercises: starting Tuesday 5th August 2025
Panel interviews: starting Tuesday 19th August 2025
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.
Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.
For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.
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.
Sponsorship
DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.
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.
Diversity and Inclusion
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 (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name :
- gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk
- Email :
- gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email :
- gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk
Further information
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact gds-recruitment-complaints@dsit.gov.uk in the first instance.
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission by email: info@csc.gov.uk Or in writing: Civil Service Commission, Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.
