Bedford - Lead Software Developer (React, Full Stack)

1. £80,000 per annum

Permanent

We're looking for a passionate Lead Developer with a strong front-end background to lead our team in building impactful solutions that improve financial wellbeing. You'll need expertise in React, Next.js, and TypeScript, as well as familiarity with Node.js, cloud services, and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB).

The ideal candidate is proactive, eager to learn new technologies, and committed to modern development practices. This role offers the opportunity to provide technical leadership, mentor your team, and shape the future of our technology.

This role is aligned with DDaT – Software Developer – Lead Developer: Software developer - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

At the heart of the Money and Pensions Service are our values – caring, connecting and transforming, which are the foundation of our success. They permeate every area of our work and define all our business relationships and the way we work with each other.

We care about our colleagues and people whose lives we are here to transform, we will transform lives through our ability to make positive connections, and we are committed to transforming lives and make a positive societal impact.

We help people – particularly those most in need – to improve their financial wellbeing and build a better, more confident future. Working collaboratively across the UK, we make sure customers can access high-quality money and pensions guidance and debt advice throughout their lives, however and whenever they need it.

By fostering our values, we are very proud of the inclusive working environment that we have created. We are committed to attracting people of all backgrounds, we want our colleagues to reflect our customers and the people we assist.

• Providing technical expertise and leadership within the team(s) you are working.
• Developing our digital products using React, Next.js and TypeScript with a focus on writing efficient, modular and maintainable code.
• Building and integrating with services in Azure (such as Cosmos DB).
• Following a component-driven development practice, working towards a common design system through development of our shared component libraries, promoting re-use of existing code where possible, and providing a clear and consistent user experience.
• Producing clean, testable code complete with unit/integration tests.
• Contribute and work alongside DevOps to streamline our CI/CD processes (utilising Azure Pipelines and the Netlify platform).
• Following the government Service Manual to ensure we build compliant experiences for our customers (e.g. ensuring we build for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, compatibility with different devices, and utilising technology such as Server Side Rendering for performance and compatibility where JavaScript is disabled).
• Collaborating within an agile team, working closely with other developers, devops, designers, editors, product owners and testers to deliver the best possible digital experiences.
• Working in collaboration with architects, information security and other stakeholders to propose new solution designs or adaptions according to requirements.
• Writing technical documentation.
• Participating in our agile planning, estimation and delivery processes.
• Peer reviewing code developed as part of our workflow.
• Able to self-manage including keeping technical knowledge up to date.
• Actively participating within communities of practice; developing our best practices and sharing your knowledge and experience with the team.
• Pairing with / mentoring other developers where appropriate.
• Leading/facilitating technical discussions and engaging with external delivery partners as appropriate.

Skills needed for this role level:

• Availability and capacity management. You can manage service components to ensure they meet business needs and performance targets.
• Development process optimisation. You can identify process optimisation opportunities with guidance and contribute to the implementation of proposed solutions.
• Information security. You can understand information security. You can design solutions and services with security controls embedded, specifically engineered with mitigation of security threats as a core feature.
• Modern standards approach. You can demonstrate a strong understanding of the most appropriate modern standards and practices, and how they are applied. You can coach and guide others in these standards.
• Programming and build (software engineering). You can advise on the right way to apply standards and methods to ensure compliance. You can maintain technical responsibility for all the stages and iterations of a software development project. You can provide technical advise to stakeholders and set the team-based standards for programming tools and techniques.
• Prototyping. You can approach prototyping as a team activity, actively soliciting prototypes and testing with others. You can establish design patterns and iterate them. You can use a variety of prototyping methods and choose the most appropriate.
• Service support. You can identify, locate and fix faults.
• Systems design. You can design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity. You can select appropriate design standards, methods and tools, and ensure they are applied effectively. You can review the systems designs of others to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology.
• Systems integration. You can define the integration build. You can co-ordinate build activities across systems. You can understand how to undertake and support integration testing activities.
• User focus. You can collaborate with user researchers and can represent users internally. You can explain the difference between user needs and the desires of the user. You can champion user research to focus on all users. You can prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so. You can offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to use.

You will need to demonstrate the following skills and experience;

ESSENTIAL:

• Experience working in a senior/lead role, providing technical leadership, coaching and mentorship within an agile development team.
• Demonstrable experience developing full stack applications, with expert knowledge of JavaScript, TypeScript, React and Next.js.
• Familiarity with Node.js.
• Familiarity with non-relational databases such as MongoDB.
• Experience working with a cloud platform such as Azure, AWS or GCP.
• Experience writing unit, integration and e2e tests (e.g. Jest, React Testing Library, Cypress, Playwright).
• An understanding of REST APIs and GraphQL.
• Awareness of secure by design principles, OWASP and familiarity with tooling such as SonarCloud.
• Experience producing mobile-first, responsive CSS and familiarity with CSS frameworks such as Tailwind.
• Experience optimising for user experience / performance (Core Web Vitals).
• Experience with accessibility; semantic HTML and ARIA.
• Experience working with CI/CD pipelines (e.g. GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps Pipelines).
• Demonstrable commitment to high quality, robust engineering practices.
• Experience of productive collaboration with design, testing, product and other digital delivery colleagues.

DESIRABLE:

• Experience developing and integrating with Azure Services (e.g. Azure Functions, App Services, Entra ID, Cosmos DB, API Management).
• Experience building and working within design systems and development tooling such as Storybook.
• Experience implementing Content Management Systems (we currently use Adobe Experience Manager) and headless integration approaches.
• Experience with monorepo architecture/tooling (e.g. Nx, Turborepo)
• Experience with monitoring tools such as Azure Monitor/Log Analytics Workspace
• Experience with Tag Management and Analytics implementations such as GTM, Google Analytics, Adobe.
• Experience with other languages such as C# or Python.

About MaPS

At MaPS, we help people – particularly those most in need – to improve their financial wellbeing and build a better, more confident future. Working collaboratively across the UK, we make sure customers can access high-quality money and pensions guidance and debt advice throughout their lives, however and whenever they need it.

We’re not only looking for the best people in and around Bedford to come and work for us, but we need people who align themselves to our values: -

• Caring

• Connecting

• Transforming

We are committed to transforming lives and make a positive societal impact.

Our inclusive working environment

By fostering our values, we are immensely proud of the inclusive working environment that we have created. The diversity of our people is a strength that we embrace and wish to build upon, so we are committed to attracting people of all backgrounds.

By way of brief example, we have an enviable ethnic diversity mix, equal gender balance with a zero mean gender pay gap and thriving colleague and ally networks, including LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, women’s health, men's health, ethnicity, and diversity.

• Generous Annual Leave – 30 days plus Bank Holidays
• Pension scheme – contributions matched 2 to 1 (up to 10% of your salary)
• Interest-free loan to help you buy season tickets for buses and trains
• Cycle to work Scheme
• Subsidised eye test & flu jabs
• Life assurance scheme
• Give as you earn scheme
• Employee assistance programme (EAP)
• PAM Assist and PAM Life scheme (Wellbeing)
• Enhanced family and sick pay
• Paid volunteering (2 days a year)
• Recognition Scheme
• Discounts portal to numerous retailers

The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business needs.

Close Date: 10/03/2025