Overview

Department for Education is delivering digital services on public cloud and maturing technology and ways of working to be cloud-native, faster, cheaper and more secure. We aim to deliver services that raise education standards, support disadvantaged and vulnerable children, and drive economic growth in Agile teams.

Role and portfolio

Senior Technical Architect within Digital Data Technology (DDT) for the following portfolios:

• Funding Service Delivery: supports one of the largest funding operations across government, ensuring over £75bn of education and training funds are allocated, contracted, and paid accurately and on time. The Digital Funding Service underpins this operation, comprising internal and external-facing products.
• Children and Families digital portfolio: supports children and young people to be safer, healthier and happier, delivering manifest commitments on children's social care, early years childcare and the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. There are significant reform programmes underway in early years, childcare and children's social care.

As a Senior Technical Architect, you will work with policy, design and delivery teams to research, design and build services that help families and citizens, while ensuring services remain scalable, secure and performant.

Key responsibilities

• Define, maintain and champion the technical strategy for a service or group of services; keep up to date with latest technologies while delivering working software early and often.
• Lead technical specialists across multiple projects and services on problems requiring broad architectural thinking.
• Define how to build and operate user-centred, open-source web systems in an agile environment to serve diverse government needs.
• Be responsible for the technical design and development of services, including how they interact with surroundings and evolve over time.
• Challenge entrenched practices, influence decision-makers and identify deeper problems and opportunities for digital transformation.
• Communicate the vision for government services to developers and non-developers, working in multi-disciplinary teams.
• Participate in the DfE architecture community, sharing knowledge and joining related communities of practice and events (e.g., product, user research, design, platforms, security).
• Contribute to building a diverse, inclusive culture within the technical architecture community.
• Collaborate with Lead Technical Architect and peers on profession-based activities, including defining standards and guidance on best practice.

Note: There are two roles available, but only one can be based in the Darlington office. Your CV and statement will be assessed against the listed essential criteria.

Essentials: criteria and assessment

• Experience in technical teamwork and delivering user-centred services in an agile environment.
• Experience with cloud-first architectures and building applications that leverage cloud opportunities.
• Experience in software development (Ruby, .Net or similar) and modern software engineering practices (TDD, CI/CD, automated pipelines, Git and DevOps).
• Assessment will consider ability to work with technical and non-technical stakeholders to agree on technical plans; ability to see wider implications beyond immediate technical problems; practical knowledge of the web stack from front-end to infrastructure and networking.

Desirable criteria (assessed at interview in tie-break):
Experience with automated tests, applying the UK Government Service Standard, mentoring in multi-disciplinary teams, and strategic technology decision-making with stakeholders.

Remuneration and allowances

• Salary: £58,185 (London: £62,336). Eligible for a Digital, Data and Technology (DDT) capability-based pay (CBP) allowance up to £19,400; discretionary, non-consolidated, non-pensionable and attached to the post.
• Civil Service Pension with employer contribution (28.97%). Total benefits include pension accrual, 25 days leave (rising to 30), King’s Birthday holiday, 8 bank/public holidays, and flexible working arrangements (hybrid patterns, job sharing, flexi-time).

Working arrangements and locations

• Hybrid working; travel to primary office cost not paid by DfE unless otherwise stated. Some travel to other offices may be reimbursed.
• Interviews may be conducted via Microsoft Teams or in person; details will be confirmed prior to interview.
• New entrants join at the minimum of the pay band; merit-based posting and potential reserve list for up to six months.

Additional information

• Criminal records and baseline security checks may be required; disclosure and barring service checks may be carried out for new or transferring staff.
• Name-blind recruitment in some parts of the process; applicants should remove identifying personal information from applications.
• Reasonable adjustments available for disabled applicants; contact details provided on the advert for accessibility support.
• Specific travel and childcare voucher implications described, with guidance to verify eligibility for government schemes where applicable.

The Civil Service Code applies, and the Civil Service embraces diversity and equal opportunities. The department reserves the right to adjust the minimum pass mark based on field strength.