Lead Software Developer

Using your experience and skills, you may be asked to work on our ‘Flood services’ - developing government digital services, to share information about current and future flood risk with the public. It could be your job to ensure that they are accessible to all, especially in times of severe weather!

Alternatively, you could be involved with our Farming and Countryside Programme, which is about delivering services to make farming sustainable, increase biodiversity, promote high animal health and welfare standards, and contribute to the Government’s Net Zero commitment, ensuring public money for public good.

A wide range of other projects requires us to maintain and develop externally facing digital services and internal applications. As part of a multidisciplinary team, you will have responsibility for ‘owning’ the functionality that you develop.

If you would like to join us in building great solutions for Defra and our Arm’s Length Bodies, then this could be the job for you. As a Lead Developer, you will also play a key role in shaping modern development practices across teams, including the adoption of AI‑assisted coding tools such as GitHub Copilot. You’ll use these tools to support faster delivery, improved code quality and better outcomes for users, whilst ensuring that strong engineering judgement, code review, testing and security remain central.

You will review colleagues design and development thinking, helping teams to make good technical decisions to select the most appropriate technologies. You will lead the integration of multiple systems and services, collaborate with senior stakeholders and suppliers, and provide direction and constructive challenge to ensure that solutions are secure, maintainable and sustainable.

This is an opportunity to be part of an organisation actively modernising how software is built in government, combining strong engineering fundamentals with the responsible use of new tooling, including AI, to improve delivery at scale.

We use a modern, cloud‑based technology stack, and follow continuous delivery and DevSecOps best practice.

Our current technologies include:

Runtime & web development: Node.js, HAPI
API development: REST, OpenAPI
Databases & caching: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis
Unit testing: Jest, Lab
Source control: Git, GitHub
Cloud hosting: Azure and AWS
Containerisation & orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, ECS
CI/CD & release management: Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions
Work management: Jira, Azure DevOps
Developer productivity tools: AI assisted coding tools such as GitHub Copilot (where appropriate), alongside established code review and quality controls

Please note for this role you will require SC Clearance. To gain SC clearance all applicants are required to have been a UK resident for a minimum of 5 years. If this requirement is not met, the individual will not be able to progress their application further.