Senior Software Engineer

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); United States; Hybrid; USD 78,000 - 108,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Flexible hours

Generous pension

Digital Allowance

Career development

Job summary

DWP Digital is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to help shape the future of digital services within the UK's largest government department. You’ll work in multidisciplinary teams to design and deliver secure, scalable platforms using AWS, Kubernetes, Java, microservices and CI/CD.

You will influence technical direction, mentor others and drive best practices while contributing to a culture of engineering excellence and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing scalable, secure tech solutions that meet business outcomes.
• Ability to lead within multidisciplinary agile teams and shape technical direction.
• Strong knowledge of cloud-native architectures (AWS) and IaC approaches.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and mentor engineers across agile teams.
• Design, build and support secure, reliable digital services at scale.
• Drive architectural decisions and ensure maintainability and interoperability.

Skills

Architectural design

Leadership

AWS

Cloud-native architecture

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

CloudFormation

CI/CD

DevOps

Security

Accessibility

Performance

Operational resilience

Job description

Senior Software Engineer

Pay up to £80,664 plus 28.97% employer pension contributions, hybrid working, flexible hours, and great work life balance. DWP. Digital with Purpose. Do you want to work on code that counts? We're looking for talented Senior Software Engineers to help shape the future of digital services within the UK's largest government department. You'll work in collaborative, multidisciplinary teams to design and deliver secure, resilient and scalable solutions. Working with technologies including AWS, Kubernetes, Java, microservices and CI/CD, you'll help build and improve platforms that support critical public services at scale. We champion engineering excellence, clean code, automation and continuous improvement. Whether you're influencing technical direction, mentoring others or driving best practice, you'll have the opportunity to help deliver services that work for millions people and transform how government works. Build great software. Solve meaningful problems. Make a difference at scale.

What skills, knowledge and experience will you need?

Proven experience designing and assuring scalable, resilient and secure technology solutions, ensuring architectural decisions align with organisational strategy, standards and business outcomes. Demonstrated ability to lead within multidisciplinary agile teams, collaborating with engineers, product managers, delivery professionals and senior stakeholders to shape technical direction and delivery. Strong knowledge of cloud-native architectures, including AWS, containerisation technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code approaches using Terraform or CloudFormation. Experience designing complex distributed systems, defining architectural patterns, and ensuring solutions are maintainable, interoperable and fit for long-term organisational needs. Understanding of modern software development lifecycles, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing and DevOps principles, ensuring architecture enables efficient and reliable delivery. Proven ability to embed security, accessibility, performance and operational resilience into architectural designs, ensuring services meet governance, compliance and user needs.

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. You'll also work with modern cloud technologies, including AWS, Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code tooling, helping to build and operate cloud-based services that are scalable, resilient and designed for the future. 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 hubs in Blackpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield whichever is most convenient for you.

Hybrid Working

We work a hybrid model - you'll spend some time working at home and 60% collaborating face to face in a hub.

Pay

Pay for this role is from £57,946 to £80,664. The maximum salary for the grade is £68,205 plus a Digital Allowance of up to £12,459 per annum for exceptional candidates, subject to our assessment of capability at interview.

Pension

You'll get a brilliant civil service pension with employer contributions worth 28.97%, worth up to £16,786 per year.

Benefits

• 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
• Professional development, coaching, mentoring and career progression opportunities.

And we have an award-winning environment and culture:

Awards and Recognition

• 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