Senior Software Developer (LITE) - DBT - G7

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has a clear mission - to grow the economy. Our role is to help businesses invest, grow and export to create jobs and opportunities right across the country. We do this in three ways.  

Firstly, we help to build a strong, competitive business environment, where consumers are protected and companies rewarded for treating their employees properly. 

Secondly, we open international markets and ensure resilient supply chains. This can be through Free Trade Agreements, trade facilitation and multilateral agreements.

Finally, we work in partnership with businesses every day, providing advance, finance and deal-making support to those looking to start up, invest, export and grow. 

The Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) directorate develops and operates tools and services to support us in this mission. The team have been nominated three times in a row for ‘Best Public Sector Employer’ at the Women in Tech awards! 

Job description

As a Senior Software Developer in the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) function in Department for Business and Trade (DBT), you will build and maintain software to deliver a complete service for users. 

LITE, or Licensing for International Trade and Enterprise, is the UK’s new export licensing platform. It is a service used by exporters to apply for export licences for controlled goods. It is also used by caseworkers in the Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) and other government departments to manage licence applications. 

You will be working in an agile delivery team working collaboratively and flexibly to build features on LITE as identified by priorities set out by the product lead. By developing an understanding of the whole LITE system, you will plan and lead development on sets of related user stories. In addition, you will be expected to coach and mentor more junior colleagues and find ways to improve the stability and resilience of the system. A typical working day might include improving LITE’s codebase, developing tests, identifying, communicating and fixing technical problems, or sharing knowledge with less experienced developers. As part of DBT, you will be in active participant in the Software Development community of practice sharing ideas and expertise beyond the LITE team. You’ll operate LITE production services and be able to maintain and support the live service for users.

Developers on LITE work in cross functional squads that are assigned to solve specific problems. You will occasionally need to travel to London for team meetings, project planning, and retrospectives. The frequency of travel will depend on the needs of the squad and the project, as well as your personal preferences.

Main responsibilities 

You will be an experienced software developer who can:

• Deliver high quality user-centred features and services within an agile environment.
• Support the community of practice within DDaT, fostering code ownership and quality.
• Support the transformation of DDaT into a modern centre for agile development.
• Mentor and coach colleagues to deliver to our standards, guided by industry best practices.
• Support developer hiring, shape our in-house team, and help make it more diverse and inclusive.
• Line manage developers to deliver results, learn and grow, and progress their careers.
• Ensure runbooks enable your Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) colleagues to support applications and/or services.
• In office hours support, and sometimes out of hours (for which you’ll be paid an allowance).

Person specification

Skills and experience

It is essential that you have experience with: 

• Python
• Django or Django REST Framework
• Testing including test-driven development and unit testing
• Delivering user-centred features and services within an agile environment using practices such as Scrum or Kanban
• Working with application programming interfaces (APIs), databases, and cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Using your knowledge, and working with related disciplines, to keep multiple teams working effectively to deliver 

It is desirable that you have:

These aren’t necessary but it would be ideal if you had experience of:

• Prototyping and proof-of-concepts
• Working with loose requirements