Senior Software Engineer

Job content

Location

We operate a hybrid working model and fully support flexibility with colleagues already based across the UK working from home and linked to one of our core locations in Newport, Titchfield (Fareham), London, Manchester, Edinburgh or Darlington.

For this role you will be linked to one of the core locations, the frequency of attendance at our offices is agreed with you as relevant to your role.

About The Job

Job summary

Are you an accomplished Software engineer, looking for a role where you can make a real impact, using your technical experience to enable us to deliver our Statistics for the Public Good strategy for the UK?

Do you want to work in an organisation that champions diversity and inclusivity, and has been voted by Glassdoor as top in the UK for Work-life balance for the last 2 years in a row?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is looking for experienced Software Engineers with expertise to join our active community of software professionals.

Job Description

As a Software Developer on our multi-disciplinary agile delivery team, you will learn from and support your colleagues in the delivery, maintenance, and continuous improvement of a highly visible customer-facing product.

You will need to demonstrate the ability to work openly and collaboratively alongside other software engineers, user designers and researchers, product managers, architects, and analysts.

You will be responsible for integrating with other services and data sources and working with cross-functional teams to ensure services are built to high standards.

When you join the ONS as a Software Engineer you will be joining an active community of practice of 170 Software Engineers, working in a collaborative development environment on critical projects and programmes across the organisation.

Responsibilities

In this role you will be splitting your time between support activities – queries, incidents, bug fixes – and continuous improvement development activities, working with our Product Owner and Delivery Manager to prioritise and coordinate incremental changes over the coming months and years, using Agile SCRUM working practices.

As a software engineer you will be responsible for:

• Designing, delivery and maintenance of quality software products to serve a variety of user needs and enhancing existing software products to meet evolving user needs.
• Maintaining and supporting services, identifying, locating and fixing faults, and taking proactive actions to avoid loss of service.
• Triaging issues and building stories for more involved issues, document processes and support more junior colleagues.
• Evaluating and adopting tools and approaches appropriate for the environment.
• Supporting an environment where continuous or “on demand” delivery can be enabled by the business, using effective delivery and deployment techniques.
• Sharing knowledge of tools and techniques; identifying and sharing good practices and collaborating to improve the capability of the team
• P eer reviewing the work of others.
  

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Ability to support the prioritisation and defining of approaches to the full Software Development Life Cycle, from defining user stories through to coding, testing, delivery, and ongoing support of products.
• Ability to work collaboratively to peer review the work of others, share knowledge and support more junior colleagues.
  

Technical Criteria:

We are looking for engineers with:

• Experience and proficiency in Python and familiarity with web frameworks such as Flask, Jinja and NunJucks.
• Good understanding of software engineering principles such as Design Patterns.
• Experience developing for cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and using cloud native technologies to manage and optimise cloud-based infrastructure.
• Knowledge of writing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools like Terraform and CI/CD tools such as Concourse.
  

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Changing and Improving
• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace
  

Technical Skills

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Programming and Build
• Function & Non-Functional testing
• Service Support
• Communicating between technical and non-technical
  

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £40,964, Office for National Statistics contributes £11,060 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our 5400 valued colleagues across the business.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that the benefits pack attached (bottom of page) will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a member of the Business Disability Forum and a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

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.

Applicant support

The ONS regularly run webinars and support sessions for candidates. You can find details on all our upcoming webinars on our Eventbrite page.

Stage 1 – Application & Sift

Assessment at application stage will be based on your work history and skills and experience. Your CV section on the application should be tailored to demonstrate any skills, knowledge and experience that are relevant to all of the essential criteria, technical stack and technical criteria listed under the person specification section of the advert.

In cases where there is a high number of applications the sift pass mark may be adjusted and candidates will be invited to interview in merit order, i.e. those scoring the highest.

Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage.

Stage 2 – Interview

Should you be invited to interview, you will be assessed using various assessment techniques aligned to the Civil Service Success Profiles, where you’ll be assessed against all the behaviours and technical criteria outlined in the advert. More details around Technical skills can be found within the role profile attached.

A presentation may be required at interview. Further information will be provided to successful candidates prior to interview.

Important Dates:

Sift date: From 15/11/2023

Interview dates: From w/c 27/11/2023

Dates are subject to change.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

This role falls within the remit of the DDaT Pay Framework that was introduced at the Office for National Statistics from June 2022. This means that in the event that you are successful at interview, your starting salary will be calculated based on the scores achieved during the Technical section of the interview. Full feedback will be provided to you at the point of offer.

Nationality Requirements - Security Clearance

Individuals appointed to the Office for National Statistics or UK Statistics Authority will be subject to National Security Vetting at “SC Cleared” level for this post. To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out applicants will normally need to have lived in the UK for the 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying.

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss.

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.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

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 : Alastair Christie
• Email : Alastair.Christie@ons.gov.uk
  

Recruitment team

• Email : DDaT.Recruitment@ons.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, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission