Senior Developers and Senior CMS Developer - Planning Inspectorate - SEO

Location

Bristol, South West England, BS1 6PN

About the job

Job summary

The Planning Inspectorate is at the centre of the governments mission to "get Britain building again". To achieve this we are recruiting for four Senior Developers and a Senior Content Management Systems (CMS) Developer to join our growing Digital Services team as we expand to meet growing demands from our colleagues, government, and our customers.  

You will be a member of a multidisciplinary team, writing code and providing technical expertise as part of our digital service teams. This will involve potentially working across multiple products including our casework management system, public facing websites and internal tools, as well as supporting our ongoing digital transformation work to create a more modern Inspectorate.  

You will work with a smart and talented group of user researchers, product managers, DevOps engineers, testers, business analysts and delivery managers to deliver better public services for communities. 

You will be joining a team of around 30 highly skilled software engineers, testers, and DevOps engineers, providing mentoring and guidance as well as setting the standard for technical excellence. 

Job description

You will be responsible for working collaboratively as part of a multidisciplinary team, focussed on delivering high quality code in line with project goals and delivery cycles. As well as this you will be setting the standards for technical excellence within a team of Developers and fostering an environment where team members are supported and can come to you for guidance and feedback.          

As a senior member of the team, you will provide technical direction within the team to identify the best technology, solutions and industry standard Agile methodologies and embed and enhance practices such as Test- Driven Development (TDD), continuous integration, continuous delivery, and DevOps.      

You will also keep up to date with the latest technologies and trends, whilst delivering working software early and often, learning new languages and frameworks and picking the right solutions. 

Our Tools 

We use high-performance developer machines, AI coding assistance, and JetBrains WebStorm IDE. This combination, alongside a collaborative working culture, allows us to be very effective and deliver excellent results for the business. 

Our Tech Stack    

We rely on:      

NodeJS for our digital transformation work.    

HTML/CSS/JavaScript for both digital transformation and other services. 

Azure for our infrastructure and deployment. 

Azure SQL for data storage.   

Docker and Azure App Services to host our digital transformation services. 

GOV.UK Design System for our web interfaces. 

Drupal for CMS capabilities

We’re happy to help you learn the specifics of our tech stack once you are part of our team.   

 Check out GitHub (Planning-Inspectorate) for a closer look at the technology we use. 

 A typical week in this role will consist of a blend of responsibilities, including:    

Performing code review.    

Providing mentoring and coaching to other team members.    

Prioritising work in line with deliverables and project goals.    

Writing code.  

Writing unit tests.  

Offering technical advice on software architecture and technology choices.  

Providing guidance to technical and non-technical stakeholders. 

Identifying and fixing faults.    

Providing technical assurance. 

 

Role types and Salary details

There are a number of roles available:

3 x Senior Executive Officer  – Permanent

2 x Senior Executive Officer –1x Fixed Term Contract 2 years, 1x Fixed Term Contract 1 year

Salary

New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band. Internal rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.

Salary range for the Grade role is £45,219 - £49,462 (pay review pending) plus a DDAT allowance of up to £12,181 based on capability and base salary

Working hours:

Standard working week is 37 hours, flexible working hours policy available

The Planning Inspectorate has a long and proud history in ensuring a fair planning system for England. The work we do has a significant impact on people’s lives, the communities where they live and the economy.

We want our colleagues to be able to work more flexibly and more collaboratively, exploring new and innovative ways to improve the way we provide services.

 For further information on the Planning Inspectorate, please visit our careers page at Civil Service Careers

Office Attendance

This role is contractually based at Temple Quay House, Bristol which is currently out of use due to undergoing refurbishment work. In the interim, we have the use of alternative office space in very close proximity to Bristol Temple Meads railway station. We recognise and value the mutual benefits of hybrid working and have a flexible approach to in person attendance, which can vary dependent on the requirements of individual business units - the details of which can be discussed with candidates if invited to attend an interview.

Person specification

We will assess your application against the Essential Criteria and Success Profile elements listed:

Essential Criteria

A comprehensive understanding of front-end web development (HTML, CSS and JavaScript). 
Experience of agile development, software design patterns, continuous integration, test driven development and version control (preferably GitHub). 
Experience of developing and working with APIs. 
Demonstrable experience of delivering user focused products with a thorough understanding of software design principles, standards and practices. 
Ability to quickly research and learn new programming tools and techniques. 
Proven experience balancing multiple priorities and dealing with ambiguity. 
Experience of identifying, locating and competently fixing faults. 
Understanding cyber security, developing solutions and services with security controls embedded, specifically engineered as mitigation against security threats as core part of the solutions and services. 

Desirable Criteria

Experience of using cloud platforms such as Azure 
Experience of Azure AI & Machine learning services.  

Additional Essential Criteria for Senior Developer

Experience of building scalable, secure web applications (preferably in Azure) and a detailed knowledge of server-side JavaScript programming 

Additional Essential Criteria for Senior CMS Developer

Experience of building CMS solutions using open-source technologies (preferably PHP and Drupal)  

Behaviours

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

Changing and Improving
Delivering at Pace
Developing Self and Others
Working Together

Technical skills

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

Programming in modern languages such as server-side JavaScript
Front end web development using HTML, CSS & JavaScript