Who we are

Do you want to help lead a team of software developers to create websites that improve lives?

We’re an employee-owned agency of technology, design and delivery experts who work with public and third sector organisations to build usable and accessible digital websites and services that fit seamlessly into user’s lives.

We help organisations like the NHS, the Department for Education, and Citizens Advice spend less money on technology, so that they can spend more on helping the most vulnerable. We aim not only to produce better services, but to radically and permanently improve people’s interactions with government to make it a better instrument of good.

One of the things that makes us different is that we are employee-owned, so we are not beholden to external shareholders, and are protected against being taken over by private equity. It also means we can prioritise being an inclusive employer, reducing our impact on the planet, and working in the open.

About GovPress

This role is part of the GovPress team. GovPress provides a secure, high quality, fully managed web publishing service, which meets the legal, regulatory and quality standards of the public and charity sectors.

We've been working with WordPress for over 15 years and offer a range of bespoke services. We host high-profile websites like NHS England, the National Audit Office, the Move to Universal Credit Campaign. We also look after smaller websites like Care City CIC and Valleys to Coast. 

Our approach to our work is that we build WordPress sites with industry-standard engineering practices. That means objects-first, test-driven development, end-to-end testing where appropriate and a strong focus on security. 

Because we support around 80 websites for 50 clients, our hosting, support and maintenance offering is a core part of our work. We standardise much of our developer workflow and automate critical parts of our process, such as our supply chain monitoring.

About the role

This is a technical leadership role. As a senior member of GovPress, you’ll be bringing technical and non-technical parts of our delivery teams together and making sure our clients have a clear understanding of what we’re building and why. 

You will help teams set their strategy for projects, making sure work aligns with technical principles. Additionally, you will support work on our platform and internal tooling, to help ensure that all our work is efficient, secure and well maintained.

Within the GovPress leadership team, we have three threads of work: 

Leading Project Development: being hands on in a project team, usually as the technical lead but sometimes as an experienced practitioner.

Internal Tooling and DevOps: we have a Lead Developer who sets the strategy for our internal tooling and processes, but all senior members of the team support the delivery of this work.

Engineering Management: all senior members of the unit manage members of the team, set the GovPress technical strategy, supporting the team as a whole, shaping work and nurturing early career developers.

You will be joining two other Technology Leads who hold overall responsibility for project work and platform tooling. Your role will also have a specific focus, which will be software security.

As a Lead Developer you’ll also usually be a line manager. It might be your first time supporting another person in this way, and you’ll have the support to learn how to do a good job of it.

About you

You want to deliver public digital services that improve the lives of the people who need them.

You enjoy variety in your work, like the idea of working on a series of different projects in different domains, and are comfortable working through fuzzy problems and with multi-disciplinary teams. 

You communicate complex technical problems well to non-technical colleagues, junior developers and apprentices. You will be used to talking to clients and end-users about their requirements.

You have demonstrated aspects of leadership in the past, perhaps as a line manager or a technical lead and you are used to nurturing early career developers.

You work in a supportive way, helping others solve problems through curiosity, but also offer your experience when appropriate.

You have worked in web publishing, and on WordPress (with Gutenburg) specifically, on at least one public facing project. You may or may not work regularly with WordPress, and you don’t need to be familiar with any specific toolchains, but you will be familiar with both modern front-end and back-end development. 

You will have a working knowledge of how to apply secure design principles to day to day development work. You don’t need to be specifically familiar with the government’s Secure By Design approach, but you should be familiar with the principles that underpin it.

You have a solid understanding of how to write production software, a working knowledge of Git or similar version control software, CI/CD and DevOps practices and know or are willing to learn some of the technologies we use as you come across them on the job. You write unit and integration tests as a normal part of your software development work and document and share the things you learn with others.

Working with us

We have people based all around the UK. Some of us work almost entirely remotely, whilst others get together in person in our Leeds HQ and our London office in King’s Cross. We provide MacBooks and use Slack and Google apps to work together.

We’re committed to making our teams as diverse as we can and to creating an environment where everyone feels included and can be themselves. We welcome non-traditional paths into technology and aim to hire the right person for the role, not some combination of keywords. We especially encourage candidates historically excluded from technology to apply.