Senior Front End Developer

Are you an advocate and an expert Front-End Developer? Capable of leading the development of products that help other teams design and deliver services?

We’re recruiting senior Front-End Developers to be part of both our amazing team(s) and community.

The 2022-25 DWP Digital Strategy “Our Digital Future” identified the Design System as a key product in delivering our goals. The DWP Design System helps to deliver consistent customer and colleague experiences faster and with less rework, by codifying design standards into reusable interface patterns.

We are looking for passionate experts in Front-End development to support and lead the build across many of our Front- End systems. The role extends beyond expert technical knowledge to encompass effective communication and advocacy, driving adoption of best practice design.

As a Senior Front-End Developer, you will share your expert knowledge and experience with the team to lead delivery and provide frontend leadership., * Lead and promote the technical direction and development of reusable patterns and components.

• Release, maintain and support the deployment of products and code packages.
• Ensure we developer accessible user interfaces for DWP services which work effectively across multiple devices and browsers.
• Input into, promote and ensure design standardisation processes.
• Coach and mentor colleagues.
• Engage with teams across different levels and capabilities.
• Be an enabler for multiple teams, driving consistency, standards, pace and quality, resolving technical blockers, and promoting re-use and collaboration through the wider communities.
• Engage with and contribute to the engineering and user-centred design communities.
• Have an excellent ability to self-organise and define priorities.
• Use modern tooling and development techniques to write and share test-driven code iteratively delivering.
• Work with cross-functional teams to integrate into the back-end services to ensure that they are built to the same high standards.
• Have strong knowledge of modern web development stacks, web standards, user experience, progressive enhancement, performance, accessibility, browser compatibility, tooling and pipelines.
• Responsible for ensuring the design system team are adhering to WCAG 2.2 AA standards.
• Responsible for driving the building, maintaining and sharing of reusable libraries of Front-end code. Responsible for taking a leading role contributing to cross-government code libraries.
• Accountable for Identifying and understanding technical and business constraints, and ensuring that Front-end Developers works within them whilst contributing back to and driving change within existing government frameworks.

As part of the role, you may be required to travel regularly to the other digital hubs. The frequency of this will be discussed further should you be successful., Ensure that all examples provided in your statements are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. If you choose to use gen-AI to support your statements, you must follow the guidelines outlined in the Artificial intelligence and recruitment guide. The sift panel will use the information in your employment history, personal statement, and technical statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge. An initial sift will be conducted using the technical statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift will be progressed to a full sift. If you do progress to a full sift, you will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your employment history and Personal Statement.

For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.

Important Information

• You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
• Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.
• If your employment history, personal statement or technical statement contain any personal details your application will be withdrawn.

Stage 2: Coding Test

Candidates who are successful at the sift stage will be sent a coding test to complete remotely. The exercise will focus on the technical elements listed in the Essential Criteria in this advert.

Full details will be sent to candidates when the exercise is issued. Candidates will have 7 days to complete the test from the date of receipt. Candidates that are not successful in the technical exercise will not progress to the interview stage.

Please add Digital.EngineeringRecruitment@dwp.gov.uk to your safe senders list or monitor your spam folder to ensure safe receipt of the code test via email.

The code test must be completed by the candidate using their skillset without using any AI or generative tools.

Stage 3: Interview

If you’re successful at the coding test, you’ll be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. During the interview, you’ll be assessed against the experience criteria listed under both the essential criteria and technical skill. You will also be asked to review and extend upon your offline coding test., * UK nationals

• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Our Senior Front-End Developers are experts in Front-End development, with proven experience in the design and build of software products at scale., * Expert knowledge and extensive experience of open-source technologies including HTML, CSS, client and server-side JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.

• Experience in building accessible compliant user interfaces, WCAG 2.2 compliance and of delivering highly tested, accessible, robust and predictable code.
• Experience integrating with a wide range of technical systems including back-end systems and able to identify appropriate technology and approaches.
• Experience of leading the technical direction ensuring quality and consistency whilst promoting standards and best practice.
• Strong experience leading a multi-disciplinary agile team ensuring quality and consistency whilst promoting standards and best practice as well as creating a coaching and mentor culture.

1. Technical statement (up to 250 words). The following statement is aligned to the required technical skill of Technical Breadth. This statement should be used to provide example(s) of how you meet the criterion below: * Expert in Front-End development of enterprise level, large scale systems and a strong leadership experience., Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Pulled from the full job description

• Childcare
• Annual leave
• Employee discount
• Employee assistance programme
• Company pension
• Cycle to work scheme, Alongside your salary of £57,946, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £16,786 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides .

We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

Hybrid Working

This role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work.

If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office.

If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £57,946 to £80,664.

The maximum salary for the grade is £68,205, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,459 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed.

Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview.

Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer will maintain their current substantive salary., If you are placed on a reserve list but we cannot immediately offer you a post, please note:

• If you are later offered the role you applied for, in a location you have expressed a preference for, and you decline the offer or are unable to take up the post within a reasonable timeframe you will be withdrawn from the campaign and removed from the reserve list, other than in exceptional circumstances (e.g. a contractual Part Time Working Pattern cannot be accommodated in the initial role offered or in cases of serious ill health).
• If DWP makes an offer of an alternative role or location to that which you originally applied for, and you decline that offer, you will be able to remain on the reserve list.

Reasonable Adjustments

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should contact the Government Recruitment Service via DWPRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.

Integrity, plagiarism and Civil Service Principles

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles.

Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words.

Examples of plagiarism can include:

• Presenting the work, ideas and experience of others as your own
• Copying content or answers from an online or published source that is not your own