Job summary
NHS England is seeking experienced Senior Developers to join product teams across various areas of the organisation to play a key part in the delivery of critical services that have a national impact.
As a Senior Developer you will work on systems that improve healthcare for millions of people across the UK. These systems range from citizen facing web portals to internal back-end services and will typically feature complex application logic that requires robust, secure, quality-focussed development practices.
We have 2 roles available in Product and Platforms. Product and Platforms builds and operates citizen and clinician facing products, working closely with other business areas across the NHS. We enable a consistent approach to digital products, underpinning technology strategy, and digital transformation, supporting the best outcomes for health and care.
- Our Central Engineering team in Products and Platforms builds and operates a set of products, tools, blueprints, and good practice guides to support Engineers, Developers, and Testers across Products and Platforms.
- NHS login provides patients and the public with a simple, secure and re-usable way to access multiple digital health and care services. It is used by many of NHS England's own patient-facing digital services, such as the NHS App, and also by many of our partners' apps and services.
The main technologies we use in these teams are AWS and Python.
Main duties of the job
As a Senior Developer you will:
- Develop software components across the front-end, back-end, and persistence layers
- Utilise appropriate design patterns to solve complex problems
- Implement robust development techniques such as unit, integration, and end-to-end testing
- Design and implement domain models, data schemas, and application architectures
- Design and implement user interfaces
- Create and present software designs
- Produce detailed technical documentation and runbooks
- Ensure seamless integration and deployment of code
- Play a central role in defining and refining product backlogs and estimating tasks
- Take part and leading team activities such as planning and retrospectives
- Contribute to cross-programme working groups
- Stay informed of emerging technologies and industry trends
Candidates will need to demonstrate experience of the following:
- Development experience working on an application
- Experience working across different layers of the stack
- Implementing quality-focussed development practices
- Evidence using appropriate testing techniques
- Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way
About us
Our work supports the NHS to deliver high quality services for patients and best value for taxpayers.
Our staff bring expertise across hundreds of specialisms -- including clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial -- enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
We lead the NHS in England by:
- Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities
- Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential
- Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
- Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation
- Delivering value for money
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
If successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the recruitment process.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Please note that the reason for the fixed term of this contract is - Short-term vacancy.
Earlier this year the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the Department. The purpose of this change is to create a smaller, more strategic centre which will reduce duplication and eliminate waste.
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
Secondments
Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Please note that the reason for the fixed term of this contract is - Short-term vacancy.
Earlier this year the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the Department. The purpose of this change is to create a smaller, more strategic centre which will reduce duplication and eliminate waste.
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
Secondments
Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Degree or equivalent experience
Experience
Essential
- Leadership - Proven experience of technically leading a software development team, solving complex enterprise problems, developing such capabilities within teams and through the coordination of external suppliers.
- Innovation - Ability to experiment with new technologies to assess their fit to specific business problems and implements their adoption within a specific solution. Experience in identifying opportunities to leverage or adapt existing technologies to provide the best customer outcomes. Communicating best practice within own and neighbouring teams. Demonstrable understanding of specific application components of software development and proven ability to proactively spot potential issues and take actions to resolve.
- Adaptability - Experience and ability to adopt and adapt appropriate system design methods, tools and techniques to ensure they are applied effectively for successful deliveries. Experience in providing alternative solution approaches to deliver comparable capabilities with associated expressions of cost, risk, timescales to support evidence-based decisions. Proven experience in facilitating a learning culture in a collaborative team setting which values patterns and practices over specific technology implementations. Experience in driving adoption and acquisition of new skills in teams when working with new technologies.
- Technical - Experience of developing a large or complex system requiring the introduction of new or optimised exploitation of existing technologies. Identifies and articulates best use patterns for working with appropriately selected technologies to meet business problems. Experience in software architecture, design and development with an understanding of a range of platforms, languages, methodologies, patterns and implementations.
Knowledge and skills
Essential
- Significant knowledge in software development, architecture and design with experience of appropriate and representative languages, frameworks, platforms and tools; including knowledge of software delivery methodologies, information processing & standards, security, infrastructure and information governance.
- Knowledge of delivering and operating end-to-end from writing code to operating / maintaining, and continuous improvement.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Degree or equivalent experience
Experience
Essential
- Leadership - Proven experience of technically leading a software development team, solving complex enterprise problems, developing such capabilities within teams and through the coordination of external suppliers.
- Innovation - Ability to experiment with new technologies to assess their fit to specific business problems and implements their adoption within a specific solution. Experience in identifying opportunities to leverage or adapt existing technologies to provide the best customer outcomes. Communicating best practice within own and neighbouring teams. Demonstrable understanding of specific application components of software development and proven ability to proactively spot potential issues and take actions to resolve.
- Adaptability - Experience and ability to adopt and adapt appropriate system design methods, tools and techniques to ensure they are applied effectively for successful deliveries. Experience in providing alternative solution approaches to deliver comparable capabilities with associated expressions of cost, risk, timescales to support evidence-based decisions. Proven experience in facilitating a learning culture in a collaborative team setting which values patterns and practices over specific technology implementations. Experience in driving adoption and acquisition of new skills in teams when working with new technologies.
- Technical - Experience of developing a large or complex system requiring the introduction of new or optimised exploitation of existing technologies. Identifies and articulates best use patterns for working with appropriately selected technologies to meet business problems. Experience in software architecture, design and development with an understanding of a range of platforms, languages, methodologies, patterns and implementations.
Knowledge and skills
Essential
- Significant knowledge in software development, architecture and design with experience of appropriate and representative languages, frameworks, platforms and tools; including knowledge of software delivery methodologies, information processing & standards, security, infrastructure and information governance.
- Knowledge of delivering and operating end-to-end from writing code to operating / maintaining, and continuous improvement.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
