https://hodigital.blog.gov.uk/hod-careers-sheffield/

Jobs at the Sheffield Development Hub

Home Office Digital is changing the way the Home Office works, building new digital services that help keep the UK's streets safe and its borders secure.

We work in small Agile delivery teams, putting the user at the heart of everything we do. We’re now recruiting for a number of roles for our new Sheffield Development Hub, to help shape the culture and direction of the department.

We’re looking for talented, enthusiastic and collaborative people who are passionate about transforming digital public services. If that sounds like you, send your CV, clearly stating which role you are applying for, to hodigitalsheffield@digital.homeoffice.gov.uk to be invited to a recruitment day where you can find out more about our current opportunities. The closing date for applications is 31 December 2015.

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Current vacancies

We’re currently looking for:

Business Analysts x 3 and Senior Business Analysts x 2
Content Designer and Senior Content Designer
Delivery Managers x 5 and Senior Delivery Manager
Designer and Senior Designer
Developers x 8 and Senior Developers x 9
Dev Ops and Senior Dev Ops x 3
Head of Development Profession
Home Team Admin and Head of Home Team Admin
Senior Product Manager
Test Automation Engineers x 4
User Researchers x 2 and Senior User Researcher

About Home Office Digital

At Home Office Digital we do things differently. We've introduced an Agile culture to the department, building digital services to help it make better decisions faster in borders, immigration, citizenship, policing and security.

sheffield-hub-post-its We research, design and build our services in-house, using small, multi-disciplinary teams. With the support of the Government Digital Service, this is an entirely new direction for government and a fantastic opportunity to positively influence how we do things at the Home Office.

We're continually innovating and iterating to make our business processes smarter. And we’re now investing in the specialist skills we need to build our digital capability even further.

Our new Sheffield development centre will be a centre of excellence, using the best tools and techniques available to research, build and support user-centred services. It’s a fantastic opportunity to join a new team with a start-up feel, with benefits including:

a Civil Service Pension
25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 10 years), 8 days public holidays and 1 privilege day per year
flexible working
childcare vouchers
eyecare scheme
shared parental leave and adoption leave
study leave
designated paid leave for public service
cycle to work scheme

Read more about working at Home Office Digital.

Who we’re looking for

The people we’re looking for:

don't have a hierarchical mindset but enjoy being part of a flat structure
want to build great digital services, for the public and civil servants
thrive on autonomy and have a focus on outcomes
believe collaboration brings about the best results
want to learn from their team and share their own expertise
help develop the whole organisation by taking part in co-curricular activities like 'lunch and learns'
aren't afraid to give - or get - constructive feedback

Business Analysts

Salary

£27,482 to £32,703

Civil Service grade: Higher Executive Officer

Successful candidates with exceptional skills and experience may be paid at the top end of the salary scale and may also receive a recruitment and retention allowance up to a maximum of up to £1,500.

About the role

Home Office Digital is building a development team in Sheffield, and wants business analysts who are looking to challenge themselves and build their skills.

You'll join a team where you'll be working with other skilled and motivated people, with a culture that promotes openness, participation and ownership.

You'll need to maintain a keen awareness of technology as well as Home Office policy and processes. You'll work closely with the business and will play a key role in communicating key principles such as user centred design, Agile delivery and quality management.

You'll be someone who:

enjoys working with end customers to understand, capture and refine their requirements
has experience of serving as a business proxy
has supported delivery teams in relation to the definition of solutions, design patterns and non-functional requirements

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

understand business users' requirements and translate them into user stories with acceptance criteria
work with the delivery teams to generate initial impact assessments
track and refine user stories and acceptance criteria
generate and prioritise Scrum backlogs
review customer acceptance criteria

Specific focus areas for this role are:

generation of user stories
splitting down epic user stories into release and sprint level for the development team
understanding the end to end user journey across channels
impacting requirements against creative designs
support of estimation and release planning

Skills and experience

You'll need key skills including:

interviewing
requirements elicitation and user story generation
knowledge capture
written communications
liaising with business stakeholders
analysis
business process design
business rules design
usability
organising focus groups for end users

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Senior Business Analyst

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

Home Office Digital is building a development team in Sheffield, and wants business analysts who are looking to challenge themselves and build their skills.

You'll join a team where you'll be working with other skilled and motivated people, with a culture that promotes openness, participation and ownership.

You'll be someone who:

enjoys working with end customers to understand, capture and refine their requirements
has experience of serving as a business proxy
has supported delivery teams in relation to the definition of solutions, design patterns and non-functional requirements

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

understand business users' requirements and translate them into user stories with acceptance criteria
work with the delivery teams to generate initial impact assessments
track and refine user stories and acceptance criteria
identify coherent sets of end-to-end functionality
generate and prioritise Scrum backlogs
ensure cross-team requirements are compatible
review customer acceptance criteria
impact requirements on customer experience strategy
support the resolution of design issues
coach and mentor other BAs

Specific focus areas for this role are:

generation of user stories
splitting down epic user stories into release and sprint level for the development team
understanding the end to end user journey across channels
impacting requirements against creative designs
supporting the design solution
support of estimation and release planning

Skills and experience

You'll need key skills including:

interviewing
requirements elicitation and user story generation
knowledge capture
written communications
liaising with business stakeholders
analysis
business process design
business rules design
data and process modelling
UI and interaction design
information architecture
usability
organising focus groups for end users

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Content Designer

Salary

£34,588 to £39,742

Civil Service grade: Senior Executive Officer

About the role

Our content designers work in fast-paced delivery teams to create clear, user-led content for digital services.They work closely with user researchers and designers to challenge assumptions and test ideas, writing content which meets user needs as clearly and quickly as possible.

You’ll be:

confident working with user needs and identifying how content within transactional services meets those needs
able to take complex language and processes and make them simple to understand
comfortable explaining your decisions to stakeholders who don’t understand web usability
passionate about what you bring to service delivery, and be an advocate for user needs within the team and the wider department

Responsibilities

Day to day you’ll:

scope, write and edit digital content for complex internal and externally-facing transactional services
ensure customer journeys are the best they can be
manage relationships with subject matter experts to make sure content is accurate
deliver content that is accurate, timely, relevant, easy to understand, SEO optimised and written to style
choose the best format to deliver content to the user and identify gaps
manage the fact-checking process with policy and legal colleagues
publish content quickly and efficiently
monitor the performance of content and tools and work with multidisciplinary teams to understand user behaviour and feedback
identify ways to improve content and iteratively improve the product
be at ease in an Agile environment with rapidly changing deadlines, workloads and goals

Skills and experience

Essential

You'll have:

demonstrable knowledge and passion for user centred design practices for public facing and internal services and applications
experience of writing for the web, with proven ability to create usable and accessible content
experience of working in a multidisciplinary team in an Agile development environment
experience in content publishing systems

Desirable

Ideally, you’ll have:

experience of working within a web application development environment, and be proficient in Markdown, picture sourcing and editing
experience in using metrics and user feedback to define and refine content
experience across devices (desktop, tablet and mobile), tools and transactional services, especially those with complex user journeys
knowledge of GOV.UK and the Government Digital Service Standard

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Senior Content Designer

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

You’ll be:

confident working with user needs and identifying how content within transactional services meets those needs
able to take complex language and processes and make them simple to understand
comfortable explaining your decisions to stakeholders who don’t understand web usability
an experienced leader, comfortable with mentoring and developing junior staff and raising quality and setting standards across Home Office services
passionate about what you bring to service delivery, and be an advocate for user needs within the team and the wider department

Responsibilities

Day to day you’ll:

lead and mentor a team of 2 content editors working across projects
scope, write and edit digital content for complex internal and externally-facing transactional services
ensure customer journeys are the best they can be
manage relationships with subject matter experts to make sure content is accurate
deliver content that is accurate, timely, relevant, easy to understand, SEO optimised and written to style
choose the best format to deliver content to the user and identify gaps
manage the fact-checking process with policy and legal colleagues
publish content quickly and efficiently
monitor the performance of content and tools and work with multidisciplinary teams to understand user behaviour and feedback
identify ways to improve content and iteratively improve the product
be at ease in an Agile environment with rapidly changing deadlines, workloads and goals

Skills and experience

Essential

You’ll have:

demonstrable knowledge and passion for user centred design practices for public facing and internal services and applications
extensive experience of writing for the web, with proven ability to create usable and accessible content
experience of working in a multidisciplinary team in an agile development environment
experience in content publishing systems

Desirable

Ideally, you’ll have:

proven experience of working within a web application development environment, and be proficient in Markdown, picture sourcing and editing
experience in using metrics and user feedback to define and refine content
exceptional skills in convincing people that user needs and usable approach is the only way to present information
experience across devices (desktop, tablet and mobile), tools and transactional services, especially those with complex user journeys
knowledge of GOV.UK and the Government Digital Service Standard

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Delivery Managers

Salary

£27,482 to £32,703

Civil Service grade: Higher Executive Officer

About the role

Our delivery managers work in small, focused teams, delivering quality user experience-led solutions for our customers. We are truly Agile and this is reflected in the co-location of our product owners with the delivery teams, our small iterative releases, modern development techniques and our culture of openness, participation and ownership.

You'll be someone who:

is confident working in an Agile environment
doesn't have a hierarchical mindset but enjoys being part of a flat culture
believes that collaborating with team members brings about the best delivery results
values educating and mentoring your team members on Agile practices, and is willing to learn from them as well
is keen to contribute to organisational development by involving yourself and others in co-curricular activities like 'lunch and learns'
is enthusiastic about sharing and receiving constructive feedback with your team members

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

manage sprint planning, reviews and retrospectives for your team
deflect distractions and remove blockers
work with burndown/ups, velocity, defect analysis and other trending information to maintain quality and delivery
hold retrospectives and actively use the outcomes to improve team delivery
provide status communications to program and business teams

Skills and experience

Essential

You'll have:

experience of delivering quality products and services in a fast paced Agile environment
experience of enabling multi-disciplinary teams to successfully deliver software solutions into a production environment
experience of promoting and demonstrating the use of Agile delivery methodologies
demonstrable experience of the pragmatic application of a number of Agile delivery techniques
a working knowledge of Agile and XP techniques

Desirable

Ideally you'll have:

experience of delivering software with teams using CI and CD techniques
knowledge and experience of working with teams using BDD and TDD

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Senior Delivery Manager

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

You'll be someone who:

is confident working in an Agile environment
doesn't have a hierarchical mindset but enjoys being part of a flat culture
believes that collaborating with team members brings about the best delivery results
values educating and mentoring your team members on Agile practices, and is willing to learn from them as well
is keen to contribute to organisational development by involving yourself and others in co-curricular activities like 'lunch and learns'
is enthusiastic about sharing and receiving constructive feedback with your team members

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

manage sprint planning, reviews and retrospectives for one or more teams
deflect distractions and remove blockers
work with burndown/ups, velocity, defect analysis and other trending information to maintain quality and delivery
hold retrospectives and actively use the outcomes to improve team delivery
provide status communications to program and business teams
create, maintain and conduct Agile training/coaching as required
actively coach the more junior members of staff

Skills and experience

Essential

You'll have:

significant experience of delivering quality products and services in a fast paced Agile environment
solid experience of enabling multi-disciplinary teams to successfully deliver software solutions into a production environment
experience of promoting and demonstrating the use of Agile delivery methodologies as well as managing stakeholders who don't understand or appreciate Agile
demonstrable experience of the pragmatic application of a number of Agile delivery techniques
a sound working knowledge of Agile and XP techniques

Desirable

Ideally you'll have:

experience of delivering software with teams using CI and CD techniques
knowledge and experience of working with teams using BDD and TDD
presented at local meet-ups

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Designers

Salary

£34,588 to £39,742

Civil Service grade: Senior Executive Officer

About the role

As a designer you’ll be responsible for designing services so good that people prefer to use them.

Our designers work closely with user researchers, developers and the product team to design services focused on user needs.

They work by prototyping and iterating: testing ideas quickly with real users and using prototypes to learn, moving to working with code as early as possible.

We don’t produce documentation purely for sign-off, and we don’t throw wireframes ‘over the wall’. Work ranges from sketches, through to HTML prototypes, workshops, and participating in user research.

Responsibilities

This role is about challenging assumptions, testing ideas, meeting user needs and testing how well those needs have been met.

Day to day you’ll:

work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to design user focused and successful services
deliver designs that meet modern web standards, ensuring that key elements are built in from the outset
contribute to the development and continual enhancement of digital services, and be capable of working across multiple services where required
take ownership of design prototypes that seek to answer questions, and meet project priorities
partner with colleagues to create a consistent user experience
give input to the team and stakeholders on the relative priority of work
share expertise in how design decisions impact accessibility - internally and externally
communicate credibly with a wide range of digital delivery disciplines both internally and externally

Skills and experience

You’ll need experience of agile delivery and of forming close partnerships within digital service teams. You’ll ideally have a degree in a design related subject, an interest in design history and the possibilities of the web, and an understanding of how form and function work together. You’ll proactively seek new learning opportunities and welcome constructive criticism of your work.

Essential

You’ll have:

a degree in design, human-computer interaction or relevant industry experience
demonstrable knowledge, experience in and passion for user centred design practices
proven experience working in a design environment on a range of projects, and designing interactions for the web and mobile
core skills which include sketching, prototyping and communicating design concepts
an interest in modern web standards and development practice

Desirable

Ideally, you’ll have:

the ability to clearly explain and discuss design challenges and possible solutions
some experience of prototyping using HTML & CSS
knowledge of GOV.UK and the Digital by Default Service Standard
working knowledge of typography and its importance in communication
experience of using research to iterate and validate design choices

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Senior Designers

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

This role is about challenging assumptions, testing ideas, meeting user needs and testing how well those needs have been met.

Responsibilities

Day to day you’ll:

work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to design user focused and successful services
deliver designs that meet modern web standards, ensuring that key elements are built in from the outset
contribute to the development and continual enhancement of digital services, and be capable of working across multiple services where required
partner with colleagues to create a consistent user experience
build relationships and work effectively with external providers like user experience professionals
share expertise in how design decisions impact accessibility - internally and externally
communicate credibly with a wide range of digital delivery disciplines both internally and externally
take the lead on activities to upskill staff, providing shadowing opportunities and direct hands-on experiences, specific training, sharing expertise and mentoring interns and junior designers

Skills and experience

You’ll need experience of agile delivery and of forming close partnerships within digital service teams. You’ll ideally have a degree in a design related subject, an interest in design history and possibilities of the web, and an understanding of how form and function work together. You’ll proactively seek new learning opportunities and welcome constructive criticism of your work.

Essential

You’ll have:

a degree in design, human-computer interaction or relevant industry experience
significant experience working in a design environment on a range of projects
expertise in designing interactions professionally for the web and mobile
core skills which include sketching, prototyping and communicating design concepts
deep knowledge of modern web standards and development practice
the ability to clearly explain and discuss design challenges and possible solutions
experience working in agile, multi-disciplinary teams, and the ability to deliver iterative design components (including use journeys) to the development team
experience across devices, platforms, tools and transactional services, especially those with complex user journeys

Desirable

Ideally, you’ll have:

the ability to prototype using HTML and CSS
knowledge of GOV.UK and the Digital by Default Service Standard
working knowledge of typography and its importance in communication
experience of designing accessible services, and the challenge of designing for a diverse audience
experience using research to iterate and validate design choices

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Developers

Salary

£27,482 to £32,703

Civil Service grade: Higher Executive Officer

About the role

Home Office Digital is building a development team in Sheffield. We want really talented developers who have started their career and are looking for the next step to challenge themselves and build their skills. You'll join a team where you'll be working with other skilled and motivated people, with a culture that promotes openness, participation and ownership.

You'll be someone who:

loves exploring new technologies on your own
feels being hands-on in multiple tech tasks is necessary for your technical growth
strives to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments/ trends in software
has rational opinions about frameworks, languages, editors etc, whether they are open source/proprietary
is focused on delivering the best solution to clients and evaluates technologies accordingly

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

use solid XP practices working in a multi-skilled team to develop production ready software
ensure all software built is robust and scalable
actively participate in knowledge sharing with others in your team

Skills and experience

You'll have experience of the following:

Technical skills

Java
other JVM languages (Groovy, Scala, Clojure etc) Spring and Spring MVC Velocity
Webservices - both REST/JSON and SOAP
build tools (SBT, Gradle, Maven, Ant)
version control (GIT, Subversion etc)
Mocking (Mockito, EasyMock, JMock, Spock)
Selenium
Tomcat
Microservices, Docker etc
Mongo (and other NoSQL databases)
Intellij or Eclipse
Linux/Unix
understanding of wider web and networks technologies

Process and practices

Agile
Scrum
TDD/BDD
CI/CD
XP

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Senior Developers

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

You'll be someone who:

loves exploring new technologies on your own
feels being hands-on in multiple tech tasks is necessary for your technical growth
strives to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments/ trends in software
has rational opinions about frameworks, languages, editors etc, whether they are open source/proprietary
is focused on delivering the best solution to clients and evaluates technologies accordingly

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

be hands on with development - this is no 'ivory tower' role
set up the build pipelines, ensuring solid XP practices are adhered to from development through to deployment and into production
work with multiple delivery teams to provide guidance on the best practices and tools to use in an XP/agile environment
recruit and motivate highly skilled developers in a distributed environment
ensure all software built is robust and scalable
work with the internal architecture teams to ensure collaborative solutions between the Digital team and the wider IT teams

Skills and experience

You'll have experience of the following:

Technical skills

Java
other JVM languages (Groovy, Scala, Clojure etc) Spring and Spring MVC Velocity
webservices - both REST/JSON and SOAP
build tools (SBT, Gradle, Maven, Ant)
version control (GIT, Subversion etc)
mocking (Mockito, EasyMock, JMock, Spock)
Selenium
Tomcat
Microservices, Docker etc
Mongo (and other NoSQL databases)
Intellij or Eclipse
Linux/Unix
understanding of wider web and networks technologies

Processes and practices

Agile
Scrum
TDD/BDD
CI/CD
XP

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Dev Ops

Salary

£34,588 to £39,742

Civil Service grade: Senior Executive Officer

About the role

The concept of Dev Ops has been enthusiastically adopted by Home Office Digital across its delivery estate. The growing development hub in Sheffield will require people who can support the development and delivery environments. We are looking for people who truly are 'Dev Ops' and can comfortably span development and operations.

We need people who can:

provide built environments that can support non-standard machines and both internal and external development resource
implement and support a process for the rapid deployment of services that match those of the best digital service providers
provide issue management and resolution for services deployed by the team

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

implement a process for the deployment of internally developed digital services from development environments into production
be part of a 3rd line support function for internally developed and supported digital services
implement an automated build and deployment capability
build and support the development infrastructure for the team
support and develop the automated build and deployment environments/processes

Skills and experience

Essential

Some experience of:

working in a business critical digital environment, including mobile apps and web
deploying to and managing services in captive data centres and Cloud solutions
responsibility for issue capture, identification and resolution across a digital estate

You’ll have experience of the following:

Technical skills

Java
other JVM languages (Groovy, Scala, Clojure etc), Spring and Spring MCV Velocity
webservices – both REST/JSON and SOAP
build tools (SBT, Gradle, Maven, Ant)
version control (GIT, Subversion etc)
Mocking (Mockito, EasyMock, JMock, Spock)
Selenium
Tomcat
Microservices, Docker etc
Mongo (and other NoSQL databases)
Intellij or Eclipse
Linux/Unix
wider web and networks technologies

Processes and practices

Agile
Scrum
TDD
CI
Pair programming

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Senior Dev Ops

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

We need people who can:

provide built environments that can support non-standard machines and both internal and external development resource
implement and support a process for the rapid deployment of services that match those of the best digital service providers
provide issue management and resolution for services deployed by the team

Responsibilities

Day to day you’ll:

devise and implement a process for the deployment of internally developed digital services from development environments into production
set up a 3rd line support function for internally developed and supported digital services
build and implement an automated build and deployment capability
agree with key stakeholders and document the build and deployment process for digital services
build and support the development infrastructure for the team
support and develop the automatic build and deployment environments/processes

Skills and experience

You'll have significant experience of:

working in a business critical digital environment, including mobile apps and web
deploying to and managing services in captive data centres and Cloud solutions
responsibility for issue capture, identification and resolution across a digital estate
recruiting and running multi-disciplinary teams accountable for managing digital services, including second line support and Dev Ops

You’ll have experience of the following:

Technical skills

Java
other JVM languages (Groovy, Scala, Clojure etc), Spring and Spring MCV Velocity
webservices – both REST/JSON and SOAP
build tools (SBT, Gradle, Maven, Ant)
version control (GIT, Subversion etc)
Mocking (Mockito, EasyMock, JMock, Spock)
Selenium
Tomcat
Microservices, Docker etc
Mongo (and other NoSQL databases)
Intellij or Eclipse
Linux/Unix
wider web and networks technologies

Processes and practices

Agile
Scrum
TDD
CI
Pair programming

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Head of Development Profession

Salary

£57,603 to £68,547

Civil Service grade: Grade 6

About the role

Home Office Digital works across the breadth of Home Office delivery, from passports to police, and visas to borders. This is an ideal opportunity for an experienced Technical Lead to join a team that embraces a start up culture but is also building core digital products and services that will have a positive impact on millions of people.

You won't be an ‘ivory tower’ architect, but will relish working closely with the developers and other members of the technical community to deliver user focused solutions for the Home Office.

You'll also:

love exploring new technologies on your own
strive to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments/trends in software
have rational opinions about technology stacks
be focused on delivering the best solutions to the business taking a balanced view of the requirements and available technology

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

ensure Home Office Digital Sheffield has a technical strategy that aligns to the requirements of the wider Home Office and meets the needs of the development teams
collaborate with other architects in the Home Office to ensure cross departmental alignment
provide hands-on technical leadership, in the development, operation and ongoing improvement of complex, transformational digital services serving millions of users
work with product managers and developers to understand user needs for new and existing services as part of a Front Door function
act as the technical authority in prospective, information gathering and scene setting meetings with other government departments, evaluate technical proposals from external suppliers, and make implementation recommendations to senior stakeholders
work with delivery teams and partners to break technical requirements down into appropriate pieces
ensure that new and updated platforms, products and transactions are thoroughly tested for performance, are able to handle specified load, and can be maintained over the long-term
work with external suppliers to ensure that their system architectures are robust, scalable, open and secure, with appropriate overall system design and integration points/APIs, to deliver a high quality user experience
advise on evolutionary software architecture to government departments and agencies
provide mentorship and/or line management for software developers and junior software developers
assist with building a culture of continuous delivery and improvement, ensuring that key systems are regularly analysed, maintained and improved

Skills and experience

Essential

You'll have:

comprehensive and recent experience designing and implementing complex software systems, i.e. is an active software developer currently engaged in architecting and building high-volume digital services
proven capability in managing technology implementation projects and in presenting to / working with stakeholders at every level of seniority
a demonstrable track record of successfully taking an evolutionary architecture approach to software architecture
focused on strategic alignment of technical design and architecture to meet business growth and direction
knowledge of Agile product management, in particular determination of vision, objectives, goals and success criteria
experience of developing product roadmaps, backlogs and measurable success criteria, and of writing user stories, i.e. can establish a path to delivery for breaking down stories
experience organising and performing prototyping and proof of concepts
experience with Agile methodologies (TDD, SCRUM, Kanban, etc)
built and scaled high-traffic websites and/or high volume transaction processing and analysis platforms
experience designing and implementing scalable and robust approaches to caching, security and databases (including relational, e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL, and “NoSQL”, e.g. Cassandra, MongoDB)
experience with automated configuration management, deployment and testing solutions
used and implemented modern front end web programming techniques, such as HTML5, CSS3, AJAX, REST, JSON
experience with a web programming framework such as Django, Ruby on Rails, Scala / Play etc
developed and used web-based APIs (especially REST-based APIs)
experience with open source solutions and community
used and deployed on Cloud based platforms
experience of sharing knowledge and working in a multi-disciplinary team

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Home Team Admin

Salary

£22,961 to £26,406

Civil Service grade: Executive Officer

About the role

Home Office Digital is building a Development Hub in Sheffield. The vision is for a team capable of supporting development from initial conversation, through development and into production. This team will become a permanent feature in Sheffield for the Home Office and will need administrative support to ensure the successful delivery and support of great Digital products and services for the Home Office. This is a great opportunity to join a growing team that will impact the lives of many people.

We need someone who can work with very little direction and is adept at ensuring the office runs smoothly.

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

work with the Head of the Home team in the management of the Hub's budgets and ensuring the development teams are properly accounting for their time
help the Head of the Home Team maintain a resource plan
work with the Home Team in London to ensure alignment of budgets and people plans
be part of the team administering the Front Door process
help organise events involving both internal and external resources
ensure all office supply requirements are met
manage the diary of the Head of Hub and assist other members of the team with booking requirements

Skills and experience

Essential

You'll have:

experience of managing budgets
exceptional organisational skills
experience of managing people
engagement and communication skills

Desirable

Ideally you'll have:

knowledge of running agile/XP delivery projects

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Head of Home Team Admin

Salary

£27,482 to £32,703

Civil Service grade: Higher Executive Officer

About the role

We need someone who can work with very little direction to set up and manage the processes needed for the hub to operate efficiently and accountably.

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

devise and manage the process for managing the Hub's budgets and ensuring the development teams are properly accounting for their time
work with the Front Door and delivery team leads to plan resource
maintain a resource plan
liaise with the Home Team in London to ensure alignment of budgets and people plans
work with the technical leads to devise and manage a process for the management for development requests into the team, ensuring alignment across Home Office digital and technology teams
work with the head of the hub to organise events involving both internal and external resources
manage the person responsible for office administration

Skills and experience

Essential

You'll have:

experience of managing budgets
exceptional organisational skills
experience of managing people
engagement and communication skills

Desirable

knowledge of running agile/XP delivery projects

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Senior Product Manager

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

Great products don't make themselves. We're looking for someone who can provide the vision and direction the operations and development teams require.

You'll be someone who understands the intersection between technology, business requirements and the user experience. You'll use this knowledge to devise a product strategy for the Home Office in Sheffield and encourage the continuous and iterative improvement of key products.

Responsibilities

Day to day you’ll:

promote your product vision and definition by articulating a compelling vision
inspire one or more multi-disciplinary Agile delivery teams to develop new products and iterate existing products to meet user needs
provide substantial input to the initial triage of ideas by the Digital Front Door team to ensure a well developed pipeline of financed work
help to define a Product roadmap in conjunction with technical experts in the team
ensure that the needs of the user, both internal and external, are taken into account

You’ll also:

maximise value for money by encouraging the development of products that can be iterated, adapted and reused across government departments
keep continually abreast of changes to user habits, preferences and behaviours and understand their implications for successful delivery of government digital services
ensure delivery of digital services is underpinned by qualitative and quantitative user data
be a digital leader, sharing your in-depth understanding of the digital marketplace, including best practice, costs, suppliers, methodologies and skills with both internal and external stakeholders
be actively involved across partner and user communities to promote the department’s principles and foster a collaborative approach to digital service delivery

Skills and experience

Essential

You’ll have:

proven experience in delivery and ongoing management of high quality digital products
demonstrable knowledge, experience and passion for user centred design
excellent knowledge of the digital landscape, including mobile and responsive design, use of cloud technologies and multiplatform services

You can:

combine user research, organisational strategy and business analysis to create a compelling product vision
use your knowledge of digital development, agile processes, costs and estimation to come up with a credible product roadmap

Desirable

Ideally, you’ll have:

knowledge of GOV.UK and the Government Digital Service Standard
experience of delivering digital services in secure environments
capability in the use of analytics, identifying patterns of use and making data driven product and strategy decisions

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Service Designer

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

We're looking for talented, passionate service designers to join our expanding team in Sheffield. As a service designer you are responsible for designing services so good people prefer to use them. Our service designers work closely with user researchers, interaction designers, developers and the product team to design services focused on user needs.

This role is about challenging assumptions, testing ideas and translating user needs into a solution that meets those needs – and then to test how well those needs have been met. You will be comfortable considering the wider journey, how it fits together and the systems that underpin it.

Service design is a new discipline in the Home Office, and through your work you will develop services that demonstrate what excellent service design and service delivery looks like. That will include designing services that are efficient, cost effective, usable and satisfying. You’ll share your learnings with the wider design and research community (both within Home Office Digital and wider Government) and help promote service design and communicate the value it delivers.

Responsibilities

You'll:

work across the Home Office to create new, usable and efficient services
improve existing services by rationalising and joining-up transactions, reusing platforms and data, and planning internal processes and tools
work by prototyping, iterating, and testing your ideas quickly. You'll prioritise taking rough ideas to real users over producing highly polished designs, and use prototypes to help the wider team learn about user needs for a given scenario or task
iterate prototypes based on research with users to validate or invalidate design hypothesis, moving to working with code as early as possible
be expected to work through collaboration. We don’t produce documentation purely for signoff, and we don’t throw designs over the wall. Work ranges from sketches, story and journey mapping, collaborative design, workshops, and participating in user research

Day to day you'll:

analyse failure within services and identify root causes for that failure
identify opportunities for cost reduction and improvement within an existing service
understand user needs and identify where separate interactions and transactions with government should act as one service that meet that need
arrange these separate interactions into rational user journeys within that service
look for commonalities in activities across services where products could be made
understand the existing supporting system of a service and design targeted improvements to that system to accommodate the new service - both digital and process based
focus on balancing services so that they are usable and satisfying for internal users as well as external users
create and rapidly iterate service prototypes
identify and design new cross government service patterns and standards
identify methods and opportunities to measure improvements and service performance through metrics
create designs that use data to improve service delivery
working as part of a multi-disciplined team to design user focussed and successful services that take appropriate channels and technical constraints
facilitate and lead collaborative working with stakeholders from across the Home Office
disseminate expertise of how service design decisions impact accessibility both internally and externally
communicate credibly with a wide range of digital delivery disciplines and talent both internally and externally
take the lead on activities designed to up-skill Home Office staff – providing shadowing opportunities and direct hands-on experiences, specific training, sharing expertise, and mentoring our interns, and Junior / Mid-weight designers

Skills and experience

You should have experience of agile digital delivery, be comfortable with deploying service design within agile, and of forming close partnerships within digital service teams.

Essential

You'll have a design related degree or relevant industry experience and be able to:

prototype service experiences quickly through mock-ups, sketches and high-fidelity prototypes
work quickly in an Agile environment
explain ideas in a way that other people understand
welcome constructive criticism and be able to review the work of others
interpret user research
remove complexity from services
write for user interfaces
explain design decisions and be able to represent a service at a service assessment
assess a service and give constructive feedback
put forward the case for design with a product manager
collaborate on design with an interaction designer and with a developer
engage the whole multidisciplinary team with the design process
lead a workshop
work at pace

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Test Automation Engineers

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

All development at the Sheffield Development Hub will be conducted using Agile delivery methods. Therefore we're looking for people with substantial experience of working in and with self-starting Agile delivery teams.

You'll have hands-on experience of developing test solutions in a fast paced Lean/XP Agile environment and will:

love exploring new technologies on your own
strive to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments/trends in software
have rational opinions about technology stacks
be focused on delivering the best solutions to the business taking a balanced view of the requirements and available technology
have no fear about raising issues to ensure that our products are delivered to the highest quality

Responsibilities

Day to day you'll:

work in a multi-disciplinary team supporting the development of new applications
ensure great quality software by using your automation skills to integrate the right tools and frameworks into the build pipeline
promote a TDD/BDD orientation in the team
guide the exploratory testing efforts
support live applications - troubleshooting, defect triage, problem diagnosis, root cause analysis

Skills and experience

You’ll need a good understanding and solid experience of enterprise development, testing, deployment, configuration, troubleshooting and enterprise platforms.

Essential

You’ll have:

strong knowledge of BDD across all the delivery pipeline
a strong software development background
test automation skills around tools and platforms linked with BDD such as Cucumber
experience of automation tools such as Selenium web-driver
solid experience of working on projects that use BDD tools for collaboration
Java programming skills
knowledge of databases/SQL
a working knowledge of Continuous Integration (CI) methods and tools such as Jira, Jenkins or Hudson
knowledge of build tools such as Gradle, Ant or Maven
awareness and practice of UI performance best practices and cross-browser/device and cross-platform development
exposure to the DevOps model
strong exploratory skills

Desirable

Ideally, you’ll have exposure to:

Apache Tomcat
web technologies such as JSP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS
Unix configuration and command line tools
cloud based virtual servers and configurations such as Amazon AWS
RESTful web services (JSON)

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User Researchers

Salary

£34,588 to £39,742

Civil Service grade: Senior Executive Officer

About the role

Our user researchers work within fast-paced delivery teams. They form close partnerships with designers, front-end developers and business analysts. They don’t spend time writing lengthy reports, but look for engaging ways to communicate findings to delivery teams and stakeholders across the department.

Responsibilities

Day to day you’ll:

plan, design and conduct in-house usability testing sessions to support the design and development of government services
lead the usability testing process, from developing user recruitment briefs, personas and user stories through to test moderation, analysis and report writing
conduct in-house research to test new product and concept developments, including user requirements gathering and early stage concept and prototype testing, guerrilla research, and other approaches to ensuring the user needs are fully understood in the service design
work with Service Managers/Product Owners to devise appropriate research strategies to generate focused insights and convert concepts into appropriate stimulus material (low or high fidelity)
work closely with appropriate members of the team to turn user research findings into actionable product/service requirements
apply knowledge in human factors, ethnography, and the user-centred design process to product and service design in an iterative development environment

Skills and experience

You’ll be:

passionate about what you bring to service delivery
a vocal advocate for user needs, within the team and the wider department
comfortable with lean UX practices like guerrilla testing, paper prototyping and rapid analysis techniques that involve the wider team whenever possible

Essential

You’ll have:

demonstrable knowledge of and passion for user centred design practices for both public facing and internal services
proven experience of eliciting user needs for applications and services
experience of managing, executing and analysing usability test sessions
experience of working in an Agile environment with user experience teams, designers and developers to create new digital products/services and applications internal to an organisation

Desirable

Ideally you’ll have:

experience across devices – desktop, tablet and mobile, tools and transactional services, especially those with complex user journeys
experience of identifying and understanding user groups and communicating needs using methods such as design personas
a degree in HCI, usability, cognitive psychology, market research or a related field
training in research methods to understand the theory behind the practice
experience within a research and digital environment
knowledge of GOV.UK and the Government Digital Service Standard

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Senior User Researcher

Salary

£47,022 to £55,957

Civil Service grade: Grade 7

About the role

Responsibilities

Day to day you’ll:

plan, design and conduct in-house usability testing sessions to support the design and development of government services
lead the usability testing process from developing user recruitment briefs/personas and user stories, through to test moderation, analysis and report writing
conduct in-house research to test new product and concept developments - including user requirements gathering, early stage concept and prototype testing, guerrilla research, and other approaches to unsure that user needs are fully understood in the service design
work with Service Managers/Product Owners to devise appropriate research strategies to generate focused insights and convert concepts into appropriate stimulus material (low or high fidelity)
work closely with the appropriate members of the team to turn user research findings into actionable product/service requirements
apply knowledge in human factors, ethnography and the user-centred design process to product and service design in an iterative development environment
present findings and related design/business recommendations and customer insights to senior decision makers ensuring that research findings are relayed quickly to teams and wider department/government where beneficial
promote user-centred design principles and best practices within government
mentor and train more junior members of the team in research techniques

Skills and experience

You’ll be:

passionate about what you bring to service delivery
a vocal advocate for user needs, within the team and the wider department
comfortable with lean UX practices like guerrilla testing, paper prototyping and rapid analysis techniques that involve the wider team whenever possible
self-sustaining, experienced in using a variety of user research methodologies and able to develop research strategy and test design tailored to a given service

Essential

You’ll have demonstrable knowledge and passion for user centred design practices and experience of:

gathering user requirements for web based services
managing, executing and analysing usability test sessions
working in an Agile development environment with user experience teams, designers and developers to create new digital products and services
identifying and understanding user groups and communicating needs using methods like design personas
web content, tools and transactional services, especially those with complex user journeys
a research and digital environment
GOV.UK and the Government Digital Service Standard

Desirable

Ideally you’ll have a degree in HCI, usability, cognitive psychology, market research or a related field.

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