Lead Developer - Digital Services & Platform Strategy

Working for Essex; Chelmsford; On-site; GBP 61,000 - 71,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Public sector pension

Job summary

Essex County Council seeks a Lead Developer to define and deliver the Council’s development strategy. You will lead internal engineering, shape digital services and guide a team of developers on a 12‑month fixed term contract in Chelmsford.

Lead across product teams, set technical direction for a new low‑code platform, and ensure secure, user‑centred solutions, with budgetary responsibility up to £500,000.

Qualifications

• Degree‑level qualification or equivalent professional experience.
• Evidence of continuous professional development and capability aligned to SFIA Level 6.
• Experience delivering digital services in complex organisations.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver the Essex Digital Service development strategy.
• Establish engineering standards and design patterns for reuse.
• Provide technical leadership across strategic programmes.
• Lead design, development and improvement of software, services and APIs.
• Collaborate with Product and Delivery Managers to align decisions.
• Lead and mentor engineering teams to grow capability.
• Set coding, testing, accessibility and quality standards.
• Drive DevOps, CI/CD, automation and cloud‑native practices.
• Identify and mitigate technical risks with stakeholders.

Skills

SFIA Level 6 software engineering

Agile delivery

Modern programming languages

Software design & architecture

Stakeholder management

Excellent communication

Education

Degree‑level qualification

Job description

Essex County Council seeks a Lead Developer to define and deliver the Council’s development strategy. You will lead internal engineering, shape digital services and guide a team of developers on a 12‑month fixed term contract in Chelmsford.

Lead across product teams, set technical direction for a new low‑code platform, and ensure secure, user‑centred solutions, with budgetary responsibility up to £500,000.