Software Engineer

Overview

Looking for your dream job? We're thrilled to announce new positions and are seeking talented individuals to join our software engineering family!

Would you like to build and run the platforms that underpin public services in Scotland? In the cloud and platform services division, our mission is to design, build, and operate a Scottish Government platform for Public Sector bodies across Scotland, providing: Cloud Computing, Digital Payments, and Digital Identity. By establishing common platforms, we support organisational transformation, allowing bodies to deliver their services more efficiently, more quickly, and at scale.

As a Software Engineer, you will: develop software to meet user needs, writing clean, efficient, secure, documented and well tested code; operate the services you build and identify issues in production: observe best practises and contribute to their improvement; mentor colleagues; and have awareness of common security vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO WORK HERE?

** Cloud Engineer ** Chance to work with a large and diverse number of customers across public sector

** Cloud Architect ** Work with new technologies to deliver benefits to people in Scotland. Opportunities to work with a wide range of people with different skills. Learning and development is a core value of SG and there are opportunities to develop.

Hear from colleagues discussing Digital Careers at Scottish Government.

HOW WILL I SPEND MY TIME?

As part of a cross functional agile team, you will be responsible for the whole of the software development lifecycle, including interpreting the requirements, writing unit and integration tests, coding the solution, and automating infrastructure creation, software deployment, and monitoring. You would be joining at an exciting time where we are investing in growing our team and supporting colleagues’ professional development to broaden their skills while increasing their depth of knowledge with the latest technologies.

What technologies will you use?

Our services and applications run on AWS using Kubernetes, backend services are written in Java, with Node JS and Typescript used for front end applications. Persistence is provided by S3, DynamoDB and Redis. We use Grafana/Prometheus for metrics and dashboarding; and Gitlab for CI/CD. The cloud platform team operate both an AWS and Azure platform.

Responsibilities

Your responsibilities will include:

A developer delivers software components that form part of a product.

At this role level, you will:-

• Develop software to meet user needs; writing clean, secure and well tested code
• Operate the services you build and identify issues in production
• Follow best practice guidelines and help to improve those guidelines
• Coach and mentor more junior colleagues

Additional Duties

• Participate in planning and prioritizing software delivery
• Write software, across the entire software development life cycle, using a variety of software design patterns.
• Design, implement, deploy and operate small services or components
• Develop applications using a mixture of code and low-code approaches
• Write and test software and infrastructure that will run in a cloud environment
• Develop software securely, using best practices and implementing specific guidance
• Help with the identification and resolution of issues on production systems
• Apply agile or lean practices to your daily work
• Work as part of the team to continuously improve development processes

WHAT IMPACT WILL I HAVE?

After a successful year, you will have worked on several software project components, such as writing programmes and conducting scalability tests using the most advanced tools and technologies. You can take pride knowing that you have contributed to the betterment of both your public sector colleagues and the people of Scotland by creating a modern, scalable platform that is valued by an ever-growing user base.

COMPETENCIES

• Self-Awareness
• Communications and Engagement
• Improving Performance
• Analysis and Use of Evidence

If invited to any interview or assessment the panel will be looking for evidence of how you meet the above competencies. More details on these are available in the Person_Specification_Band_B_Updated_9.9.22_PDF

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA & QUALIFICATIONS

No formal qualifications are required for this role. We would love you to apply if you meet the following essential criteria. If you would like to chat first, please get in touch digitalcareers@gov.scot

• You know how to design, implement and manage service components to ensure they meet business needs and performance targets including security, resilience and scalability
• Familiarity with the principles of continuous delivery. Experience with continuous integration tools (e.g. Gitlab), version control (e.g.Git)
• Experience in developing modern web applications (with one or more of C#, Java, Python, typescript or JavaScript) and deploying these using infrastructure as code in a cloud environment (e.g. Azure)
• Experience applying agile software development practices. In particular you must be proficient in iterative software development

WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU

A meaningful and rewarding career, a collaborative culture and support for your career goals, while promoting a healthy work-life balance. We offer a valuable range of benefits to attract, develop and retain the best talent. These include:

• Salary between £44,557 to £53,351
• £5000 Digital (DDaT) Pay Supplement after a 3-month qualifying period ***
• Generous Pension Scheme with employer contributions ranging from 26.6% to 30.3%.
• Flexible working arrangements including compressed hours and flexi time, with potential to accrue up to 4 days off a month.
• 36.5 Days Annual Leave - including public and privilege holidays. This increases to 41.5 days after 4 year service.

*** Digital (DDaT) Pay Supplement:

This post attracts a £5000 DDAT pay supplement after a 3 months DDaT competency qualifying period. Pay supplements are temporary payments and are subject to regular review.

To learn more about our full range of benefits, please visit our career's page

REMOTE WORKING

We operate a flexible location policy, with a contractual named base in Scotland of either Atlantic Quay (Glasgow) or Victoria Quay (Edinburgh).

The team currently works on a hybrid basis and are fully flexible. We meet in person when it is useful to do so, such as a divisional away day. If you wish, you can work throughout the week at the base office (or another Scottish Government office subject to availability). Commuting costs to the named base office are not reimbursed.

While staff are assigned to the base office, there may be a need for travel to other Scottish Government offices/other locations depending on assigned work.