Senior Software Engineer

DWP Digital; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 48,000 - 81,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working hours

Volunteer leave

I Can Be Me in DWP initiative

Discounts on shopping

Interest-free travel loans

Sports and social activities

Professional development and mentoring

Job summary

DWP Digital is transforming the UK’s digital public services. This Senior Software Engineer role sits in the Working Age Services team, delivering high-value Java applications in cloud environments, with a focus on scalable, secure services used by millions.

You'll work in multidisciplinary agile teams to design, build and evolve solutions, influencing technical decisions and mentoring others while benefiting from hybrid work arrangements in Leeds.

Qualifications

• Proven track record building and deploying modern Java apps.
• Extensive cloud experience in AWS and Azure.
• Excellent understanding of TDD and BDD.
• Deep knowledge of SQL and NoSQL databases (Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB).
• Strong background building robust automated test suites for CD/CI.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and mentor engineers across teams.
• Design, build and support secure, reliable digital services.
• Lead architectural discussions for scalable, cloud-based systems.
• Influence technical strategy and engineering practices across DWP Digital.
• Support the development of peers and the engineering community.

Skills

Java applications

Cloud environments

TDD & BDD

SQL & NoSQL

Automated tests

APIs & Microservices

Job description

Pay up to £80,664, plus 28.97% employer pension contributions, hybrid working, flexible hours, and great work life balance.

DWP. Digital with Purpose.

DWP is the UK's largest government department. We help people into work, and make payments worth over £195bn a year to support and empower millions of people.

We're using fresh ideas and leading-edge tech to build and maintain digital solutions that will be used by nearly every person in the UK, every day and at key moments in their lives.

Join DWP Digital's Working Age Services team, where you'll help shape and deliver the digital services that support Universal Credit, one of the UK's most significant public services.

You'll work within multidisciplinary agile teams to design, build and evolve high-value applications, driving DWP's digital transformation and improving outcomes for our customers.

The scale of what we do is extraordinary, and our purpose is unique. We'd love you to join us.

What skills, knowledge and experience will you need?

• A proven track record of building and deploying modern Java applications.
• Significant experience of building in cloud-based environments like AWS and Azure.
• An excellent understanding of TDD and BDD.
• Detailed working knowledge of SQL and noSQL database applications such as Postgres, MySQL, and MongoDB.
• Extensive experience and proven track record in the build up a useful, robust automated test suite to support a continuous deployment environment.
• Strong working knowledge and practical experience of APIs, RESTful services and Microservice Architectures.

You and your role

Our Senior Software Engineers provide technical leadership, mentor engineers, and champion engineering best practice across DWP Digital.

Working in multi-disciplinary agile teams alongside architects, designers, researchers, analysts and testers, you'll design, build and support secure, reliable digital services used by millions of people.

You'll help modernise large-scale systems, transforming legacy platforms into resilient, scalable cloud-based architectures. With the freedom to influence technical decisions, you'll play a key role in shaping the future of engineering across one of the UK's largest government departments.

Alongside hands-on engineering, you'll share expertise, grow capability and support the development of others across our engineering community.

This is an opportunity to solve complex technical challenges, influence technical strategy, and build services that help people access support more quickly and easily.

We'll support your development through coaching, mentoring, professional learning and a thriving engineering community.

Location: You'll join us in one of our brilliant digital hub in Leeds (based in Quarry House, only a 10 minute walk from the train station).

Hybrid Working: We work a hybrid model - you'll spend some time working at home and some time collaborating face to face in a hub.

Pay: We offer competitive pay of up to £80,664.

Pension: You'll get a brilliant civil service pension with employer contributions worth 28.97%.

Holidays: A generous leave package starting at 26 days rising to 31 days over time.

You can also take up to 3 extra days off a month on flexi-time. You'll also get all the usual public holidays.

We have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Flexible working including flexible hours and flex-friendly policies
• Time off volunteering and charitable giving
• Bring your authentic self to work with 'I Can Be Me in DWP'
• Discounts and savings on shopping, fun days out and more
• Interest-free loans to buy a bike or a season ticket, so it's even easier for you to get to work and start making a difference
• Sports and social activities
• Professional development, coaching, mentoring and career progression opportunities.

And we have an award-winning environment and culture:

• DWP have been recognised as 2024 Diversity Employer of the Year at the Computing Women in Tech Excellence awards
• Diverse and Inclusive Leadership at Digital Leaders Awards 2024
• Commended as Best Place to Work in Digital category in the Computing Digital Technology Leaders awards 2025
• Recognised as one of the Best Public Sector Employers at 2025 Women In Tech Employer Awards