44879 - Senior Technical Architect

£48,353 - £78,448 salary dependent on location
1
12 Months
East Midlands, London, North East, Scotland, West Midlands, National
Birmingham , Glasgow , London, National , Nottingham , Sheffield
OPG NOTTINGHAM, NG1 6AZ, THE AXIS BIRMINGHAM, B1 1TG, NATIONAL, NOMS DIGITAL STUDIO SHEFFIELD, Greenfield House, 32 Scotland Street, Sheffield, S3 7DQ, S3 7DQ, CICA Alexander Bain House, Glasgow, G2 8JQ, 10 SOUTH COLONNADE LONDON, E14 4PU
Grade 7, Grade 6
Ab
Fixed Term
Up to 3.5 years
Full Time, Part Time, Part Time/Job Share, Flexible Working
Digital

We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity

We’re recruiting for a Senior Technical Architect here at MoJ Digital & Technology, to be part of our warm and collaborative HMPPS team.

As a Senior Technical Architect at MOJ Digital & Technology you will be designing and building web systems that make a genuine difference to people’s lives. You’ll define how we build and operate our web systems, keeping up to date with the latest technologies and trends, whilst delivering working software early and often.

At MOJ you’ll be leading the development of our acclaimed open-source public services, with user needs at the heart of everything, helping us transform Government for the future. Working as part of a multi-disciplinary team, you’ll be helping define how we do what we do, and making sure that our systems are built to be changed rapidly.

The Tech

Our Technical Architects have a good understanding of a broad range of technologies and are able to converse easily with and translate between non-technical stakeholders and technical practitioners. They are able to switch between different problems and responsibilities and are directly involved in service delivery. You will have demonstrable experience of agile development in Node, Java, JavaScript, or similar, and their associated frameworks, and will ideally have working knowledge of several programming languages. You should have practical working knowledge of modern cloud-first architectures, and how to build applications to take advantage of the opportunities they offer.

A solid background in version control with Git is essential, as is experience of automated testing techniques, continuous integration, automated deployment pipelines and associated infrastructure. 

To find out more about what we do and how we’re doing it, read our blog.

This is a MoJ Band Ab role with a salary of £48,353 - £87,440 plus great benefits:

  • 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
  • We are committed to nurturing our staff and provide lots of training and development opportunities with learning platforms such as: Linux Academy, O’Reilly, Pluralsight, Microsoft Learning, Civil Service Learning, GDS Academy, etc.
  • 10% dedicated time to learning and development with a budget of £1000 a year per person
  • Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 26-30% depending on salary.
  • 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Queens’ 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.
  • Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Careers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT
  • 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. 

Key Responsibilities:

  • Undertake structured analysis of technical issues, translating this analysis into technical designs that describe a solution
  • Look for opportunities to collaborate and reuse components, communicating with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
  • Lead technical teams and deliver user-focused services in an agile environment
  • Transform government into a more agile organisation by helping to embed modern development practices
  • Build user-centred, open source, RESTful web systems to serve a variety of citizen and government needs
  • Be responsible for the design and development of projects of various sizes, how they interact with their surroundings (including other projects and teams), and how they evolve over time
  • Align your team’s work with department and government technology strategy, participating in technical decisions and challenging previous decisions where needed
  • Help build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance
  • Help with hiring, taking part in recruitment of other developers and technical architects 

Senior technical architects, in addition to the above will also:

  • define strategy and are key to assuring services
  • regularly collaborate and find agreement with senior stakeholders, providing direction and challenge
  • are proactive in identifying problems and translating these into non-technical descriptions that can be widely understood
  • mentor and coach junior colleagues 

Person Specification: 

Essential:

  • You should have experience of design and architecture leadership and governance to delivery teams
  • Practical working knowledge of modern cloud-first architectures, and how to build applications to take advantage of the opportunities they offer.
  • Demonstrable experience of agile development in Node, Java, JavaScript, or similar, and their associated frameworks, and ideally working knowledge of several programming languages.
  • A solid background in version control, and experience of automated testing techniques, continuous integration, automated deployment pipelines and associated infrastructure.
  • The ability to quickly learn new technologies and willingness to pick the right tool for the job
  • A systematic approach to solving problems in an agile environment
  • Enthusiasm for sharing knowledge and working in a multi-disciplinary team 

Desirable:

  • Experience working with cloud infrastructure
  • A working knowledge of unix-like operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS X
  • Experience of introducing practices such as TDD, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and DevOps to teams
  • Practical knowledge at many levels of the web stack, from front-end code down to infrastructure and networking
  • An ability to build consensus between diverse and often conflicting interests, to achieve agreement on technical plans
  • Experience using automated tests to continuously validate your work
  • Passion for building a diverse, inclusive team
  • Experience leading or mentoring technical teams and supporting your colleagues, whether one-to-one or in groups
  • Knowledge of open source principles and technologies
  • Passion for defining and enabling strategic technical solutions with senior stakeholders

 

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate on the basis of 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.

How to Apply

Candidates must submit an up to date CV relevant to the person specification.

In D&T, we recruit using a combination of the Digital, Data and Technology Capability and Success ProfilesFrameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process:

  • Leadership
  • Changing and Improving
  • Communicating and Influencing
  • Seeing the bigger picture 

Your application will be reviewed and sifted against the Person Specification above by a diverse panel.

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held via video conference.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on [Pre-Sift Criteria] will be conducted prior to the sift.

Further Information

Please review the following Terms & Conditions which set out the way we recruit and provide further information related to the role.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact recruitment@digital.justice.gov.uk

 

Expected w/c 12th July 2021

24/06/2021, 23:55 hours.

If you require any assistance please call 0845 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com Please quote the job reference - 44879.

To apply for roles in MOJ you will need to confirm your employment history for at least 3 years prior to the date of application so that pre-employment checks (BPSS) can be undertaken. If you have spent significant time abroad (a total of 6 months in the past 3 years) you would be required to give a reasonable account of the reasons why. 

For some roles you will be required to successfully complete National Security Vetting at Counter Terrorism (CTC), Security Clearance (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV) level as a condition of appointment. To meet CTC/SC/DV requirements you will normally need to have been resident in the UK for at least 3/5/10 years prior to the date of application (The level of checks that are required are stated in the advert).

If you do not meet the above requirements, you may still be considered if, for example:

  • You've been serving overseas with HM Forces or in some other official capacity as a representative of HM Government
  • You were studying abroad
  • You were living overseas with parents

In such cases you will need to be able to provide referee cover for the period(s) of residence overseas. The duration of overseas residence and the country of abode will also be taken into account.

Success Profiles will enable a fairer and more inclusive method of recruitment by enabling us to assess the range of experiences, abilities, strengths, behaviours and technical/professional skills required for different roles. This flexible approach to recruitment focuses more on finding the right candidate for the specific role. To find out more about Success Profiles to support your application please click here for further guidance.

if you feel that your application has not been treated in line with the Civil Service Recruitment Principles, please contact SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com) in the first instance

We have provided detail of the assessment stages and areas being assessed to help you prepare for completing your application form, and to advise of what will be assessed following this, if you successfully pass the application stage.


Application form stage assessments

Interview stage assessments

There is 1 interview stage for this vacancy.

A Great Place to Work for Veterans

The "Making the Civil Service a Great Place to work for veterans" initiative includes a guaranteed interview scheme to those who meet the minimum criteria to provide eligible former members of the Armed Forces with opportunities to secure rewarding jobs. Allowing veterans to continue to serve their country, and to bring highly skilled individuals with a broad range of experience into the Civil Service in an environment, which recognises and values your previous service in the Armed Forces.
For further details about the initiative and eligibility requirements visit : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans

Redeployment Interview Scheme

Civil Service departments are expected to explore redeployment opportunities before making an individual redundant. The MoJ are committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.

MoJ are able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidate's will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.

For further information and to apply for this position please see the following link: https://app.jobvite.com/j?cj=o2HHffwp&s=Civil_Service_jobs.

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) https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families

· 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) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

This Vacancy is closed to applications.