Office for National Statistics
Senior Software Engineer (AWS Cloud Technologies)
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
The locations for this role are Newport and Titchfield (Fareham).
This role is aligned to ONS hybrid working principles, which are based on attending the office with purpose. The postholder will be expected to contribute to the organisation’s overall 40% office attendance, in line with business and role requirements.
Due to workforce controls you can only select Manchester / London / Darlington / Edinburgh if you are an existing ONS / UKSA employee contracted to that location. If you are not contracted at one of these sites, these options are not available to you.
Only existing ONS contractual homeworkers can select Homeworking.
Applicants who select a location they are not eligible for will be removed from the recruitment process and will not be considered for alternative locations. Please refer to attachments for further terms and flexibilities.
The induction process for the role will be conducted in person.
Job Summary
Are you an accomplished Software Engineer looking for a role where you can make a real impact, using your technical experience to enable us to deliver our Statistics for the Public Good strategy for the UK?
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.
We are looking for an experienced Software Engineer to join us. We are looking for forward-thinking people with a passion for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery working on the latest cloud and software applications. You will have an eye for detail and stakeholder management skills to provide technical and procedural expertise working within our Digital Services (DS) Directorate.
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Statistical Preparation Platform (SPP) – an ONS strategic product, implemented on the AWS cloud platform, that underpins our Economic Statistics outputs and a key enabler for reducing legacy technology. It consists of a collection of services and technical capabilities and business processes that enable the production of our statistical outputs – everything from the ingestion and validation of survey response data through to the application of statistical methods to generate our outputs.
This SEO role will work alongside a dedicated team of engineers and analysts under the guidance of a Lead Software Engineer to provide support for the platform and build/implement innovative cloud (AWS) solutions. You will be problem solving, supporting and delivering technical solutions in the cloud that support key ONS programmes of work (e.g. improving Labour Market Statistics) and the removal of Legacy technology. You will also support junior software engineers to build their technical skills and experience.
Job Description
A Software Engineer designs, develops, runs, tests and improve software that meets the user’s needs. They are responsible for writing clean, secure code following a test-driven approach. They create a code that is open by default and easy for others to use. A senior developer delivers and integrates complicated or higher risk software to form a complete service.
Responsibilities
The role will include:
- Develop and enhance software solutions to meet user story needs.
- Follow best practice guidelines and help to improve those guidelines.
- Write clean, secure, and well-tested code.
- Coach and mentor colleagues.
- Support a continuous delivery environment, using effective delivery and deployment techniques
- Operate the services they build and identify issues in production.
- Design and execute a range of test techniques.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Person specification
Essential Skills Criteria
Programming and build (software engineering) (Practitioner) – Collaborates with others when necessary to review specifications. Uses these agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium to high complexity, using the right standards and tools. Contributes to code reviews and gives constructive feedback to others.
Systems Design (Practitioner) - Designs systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact and business or technical complexity. Selects appropriate design standards, methods and tools and ensures they are applied effectively. Reviews the systems designs of others to ensure selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology.
Test Engineering (Practitioner) – Able to design, implement and execute a wide range of functional and non-functional testing techniques and to standardise their application across team. Able to make decisions on running types of test cases, and environments for testing. Able to raise defects with the business and help prioritise them based on defect severity. Develops, extends and maintains reusable test frameworks and tooling; maintains and adapts CI/CD pipelines to ensure effective test integration and quality gates. Guides and coaches others to create and maintain comprehensive standards and compliant automated tests, while researching future tools, methodologies and techniques.
Modern Developments Standards (Expert) – Has a strong understanding of modern development standards to support complex projects and programmes. Takes responsibility for developing and refining standards and lead others in applying modern development standards.
Service Support (Practitioner) - Identifies, locates, and competently fixes faults. Able to investigate undocumented issues and develop fixes. Can triage issues and build stories for more involved issues, document processes and support colleagues.
Technology Stack
- Python
- AWS – Aurora RDS (PostgreSQL), DynamoDB, Fargate, Lambdas, Step functions, SQS, SNS, S3
- Terraform
- Concourse
- Docker
- Flask
- CSS
- Javascript
You may have deeper expertise in some areas than others, but you must demonstrate a willingness to learn and develop across the full technical stack. Experience working collaboratively in agile teams and delivering reliable, production-grade services is essential.
We expect that you will have experience of using these technologies, accepting that experience of some might be more limited but you must be keen to learn all the technical stack above. Please ensure that your CV fully reflects those that you have used before. Your desire to learn and develop in a collaborative software environment will also be what we are looking for.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Changing and Improving
- Managing a Quality Service
- Delivering at Pace
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Programming and Build (Practitioner)
- Test Engineering (Practitioner)
- Service Support (Practitioner)
- Communication between technical and non technical (Practitioner)
Alongside your salary of £44,050, Office for National Statistics contributes £12,761 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.
Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.
Inclusion & Accessibility
At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.
As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.
If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.
Security Clearance
For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.
If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.
At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:
- Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
- UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
- Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
- Security Services records
ONS are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants are expected to hold a valid right to work in the UK when employment commences. If you are applying on a time-limited visa, this will need to be valid for at least 18 months at point of application.
To work at the ONS, candidates must meet
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location