Mid and Senior Frontend Developer

Details

Reference number

432740

Salary

£55,403 - £89,880

£55,403 - £64,040 (National) / £61,005 - £72,466 (London) for mid-level and £55,404 - £79,094 (National) / £61,005 - £89,880 (London) for senior-level - Based on capability. The base salary of this grade is £61,005 for London and £55,403 for other locations. Offers made above this will be made up with a specialist pay allowance.

GBP

Job grade

Grade 7### Contract type

Permanent### Business area

GDS - GOV.UK### Type of role

Digital### Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time, Compressed hours### Number of jobs available

5

Contents

Location

About the job

Benefits

Things you need to know

Apply and further information

Location

Bristol, London, ManchesterAbout the job

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.

Job description

We're recruiting for multiple roles within the GOV.UK directorate - three frontend Developers and two senior frontend Developers. We're conducting a single campaign and will assign a role based on interview performance and merit.

The GOV.UK directorate is the information engine behind the product suite. It manages the central source of trusted content, publishing infrastructure, overarching policy and consistent design that form the crucial foundation for a proactive, personalised user experience that spans multiple digital channels.

The roles are across these teams:

Web, who build and maintain the central www.gov.uk domain with a focus on content

Publishing, who look after content management tools for users across government to create and update content across all of GOV.UK's channels

Insights and Analytics, who are responsible for the performance measurement of GOV.UK and generation of insights and analytics

GOV.UK Design System, who provide the styles, components and patterns used by teams across government to build services consistent with the GOV.UK

Watch this video to find out more about what it's like to be a frontend developer at GDS.

As a frontend developer you’ll:

build accessible components and patterns to serve a variety of citizen and government needs, taking responsibility for the quality of code you produce and ensuring that it follows our standards

have and apply a broad knowledge of core web technologies, and help to define the strategy for frontend development with GDS and wider government

consider the impact of your changes, versioning releases and collaborating on release notes and documentation to help users to navigate breaking changes

design and implement automated testing plans to help us deliver with confidence

share knowledge of tools and techniques with your team (both developers and non-developers) and with the wider frontend community

participate in our in-house support rotas

have the opportunity to share your experiences and the things that you’ve learnt with a wider audience, for example by writing blog posts, or speaking at government events

If appointed at senior level you will also:

help to prioritise and direct technical work across the team

potentially take on line management of one or more frontend developers

act as a digital ambassador across government, supporting recruitment, identifying good practices for GDS to adopt and sharing experiences, e.g. through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:

experience in frontend development, with detailed knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript

experience in building robust and accessible interfaces that work for as many users as possible, regardless of their needs

experience designing and implementing an asset build pipeline and other supporting tooling required as part of the frontend development environment

an understanding of software design principles, including progressive enhancement

the ability to research and learn new development tools and techniques in a supportive environment

experience researching problems, identifying and evaluating different solutions, and making decisions whilst taking into account the views of peers and stakeholders

experience of using testing to validate solutions

understanding of agile environments and version control

a basic understanding of web security principles

an awareness of technologies used for web applications, e.g HTTPS, JSON and CDNs, and of Unix-like operating systems, eg Linux and/or Mac OS.

For our web, publishing and data roles we use Ruby on Rails and will expect you to be familiar with, or upskill in this area as well as bringing your frontend specific skillset to the role. For our Design System role we will expect you to work with Node.

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 an anonymised CV and answer 3 knockout questions

an initial 20 minute video call

a 60 minute assessment of your technical, communication and planning skills

a 75 minute panel interview via video call with 3 people from GDS, including at least 2 people currently in technical roles. You'll also have a chance to ask questions at the end.

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

experience in frontend development, with detailed knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript

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

changing and improving

making effective decisions

leadership

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 Frontend developer role:

Accessibility

Communicating information

Community collaboration

Leadership and guidance

Modern development standards

Programming and build

Systems design

User focus

Web performance optimisation

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: 31st October

Phone Interviews: W/C 10th November

Technical and Interview: 1st December

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.

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.

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.

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 .

See our vetting charter .

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)

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

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code 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 .

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 and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans 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

Name : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk

Email : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk

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-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.