Scala Developer

Scrumconnect Consulting; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 37,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Scrumconnect Consulting in Newcastle upon Tyne seeks an experienced Scala/Play Engineer to design, build, and operate production-grade software components. You will contribute to end-to-end delivery, write secure, well-tested code, and help scale services in a hybrid, cross-functional team.

You will collaborate with designers and product colleagues, participate in peer reviews, and mentor junior developers while aligning with GDS standards and WCAG accessibility goals.

Qualifications

• Strong Scala and Play Framework experience with production systems.
• Proven skills in secure-by-default engineering and information security basics.
• Experience designing RESTful APIs and integrating microservices.
• Comfort with on-call and incident response in production environments.
• Collaborative, user-focused work with designers and product teams.
• Familiar with agile or hybrid delivery models (Scrum/Kanban).
• Experience in UK public sector or regulated environments is a plus.
• Contributions to open-source government engineering ecosystems encouraged.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship high-performance Scala components end-to-end.
• Write clean, secure, well-tested code following FP and modern standards.
• Operate and scale services, triage and resolve production issues.
• Improve internal engineering best practices and participate in code reviews.
• Mentor apprentices and junior developers within the team.
• Collaborate with product owners, designers, and researchers to shape scope.

Skills

Scala

Play Framework

ScalaTest/Specs2

CI/CD

Security principles

RESTful API

Microservices

On-call support

Observability

Agile delivery

User-centred design

Public sector experience

Open-source contributions

Community talks/mentoring

Tools

AWS

GitHub

Grafana

Kubernetes

MongoDB

Terraform

Splunk

JVM

Job description

Salary: £37,000 - 65,000 per year

Requirements

• Strong commercial experience designing, building, and operating production software systems using Scala and the Play Framework.
• Confidence with modern development practices, including Test-Driven Development using ScalaTest/Specs2, continuous integration/continuous deployment, and automated testing.
• Solid understanding of information security principles and secure-by-default engineering.
• Experience with systems design, RESTful API development, and microservices integration in complex environments.
• Comfort supporting services in production, including on-call participation, incident response, and setting up observability tools.
• A user-focused mindset and experience collaborating closely with designers and product colleagues.
• Experience working in agile or hybrid delivery models, such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Experience working on high-volume transactional digital services, or strong evidence you can ramp quickly in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience delivering digital services within UK central government or the wider public sector.
• Experience working with regulated public-sector, GDS, or financial-services environments.
• Open-source contributions to government engineering ecosystems.
• Active community-of-practice contribution, such as technical talks, blog posts, or internal Scala mentoring.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship high-performance software components that meet user needs end-to-end.
• Write clean, secure, and well-tested code in Scala, adhering to functional programming principles and modern development standards.
• Operate, maintain, and scale the services you build, identifying, triaging, and resolving production issues.
• Follow and help improve our internal engineering best-practice guidelines.
• Coach apprentices and junior developers, contributing actively to our engineering community.
• Conduct thorough peer code reviews and contribute to architectural decisions within your team.
• Collaborate closely with product owners, interaction designers, and user researchers to shape what gets built.

Technologies

• API
• AWS
• GitHub
• Grafana
• Kanban
• Kubernetes
• MongoDB
• Play Framework
• Scala
• Security
• Splunk
• Terraform
• microservices
• Cloud
• JVM

More

We are Scrumconnect Consulting, a multi-award-winning digital consultancy recognised for delivering impactful and innovative technology solutions across UK government departments. Our work has positively influenced the lives of over 40 million UK citizens. We are passionate about user-centred design, agile delivery, and building digital services that make a real difference. In this hands-on contract role based in Newcastle with hybrid working, you will help us design, build, and maintain high-quality microservices and back-end systems using Scala and the Play Framework. You will work within multidisciplinary agile teams to deliver user-centred digital services that meet GDS standards and WCAG accessibility requirements, using technologies including MongoDB, AWS, Kubernetes (EKS), Terraform, GitHub Actions, Splunk, and Grafana. We value collaboration, creating value early, integrity, and commitment, and we are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity drives innovation and better outcomes.