Are you starting your career in software engineering and want to work on automation solutions that improve lives?

If so, The Garage has an exciting opportunity for you to work on automation solutions that directly improve services used by millions of citizens.

The Garage, DWP's strategic automation team, has built over 75 solutions that have processed over 50 million transactions in the last 8 years. Recognised as a government leader in intelligent automation, The Garage is also acknowledged as leading the way across industry.

As a Junior Software Engineer, you will work closely with experienced software engineers to build your technical skills. Your focus will be on learning modern development practices, delivering high-quality code, and contributing to automation solutions that make a real
difference.

As a Junior Software Engineer in The Garage reporting to a Software Engineer, you will develop features and components for automation solutions within a single scrum team. You will be assigned a specific mentor who will guide your development, while also working with multiple technical colleagues across different levels to broaden your skills.

The Garage team is primarily co-located, creating a strong collaborative environment that supports effective hybrid working and regular in-person interactions.

You'll be joining at an exciting time as we scale our technical capabilities to support rapid growth in automation solutions across DWP. We focus on modern automation approaches using cloud-native APIs and emerging Agentic AI technologies, using RPA where required for legacy applications. Your focus will be predominantly on building new solutions and features from the ground up, with minimal time spent on existing system enhancements. You'll be building strong coding fundamentals, learning AWS and automation technologies, and delivering quality features under guidance. Recent projects include agent-facing web applications, robotic process automation for case processing, and AI-based communication triage.

You will learn by doing, working on real automation solutions and receiving support from senior engineers through pairing, code reviews, and regular mentoring sessions.

To ensure products meet the highest quality standards, you will work with modern cloud architectures and, where applicable, robotic process automation and AI/ML technologies.

You'll have access to modern tools and equipment: We plan and track work in Jira, we document in Confluence, we communicate using Teams and Slack, we commit, build and deploy code with GitLab, we use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as our cloud platform, and we do it all on MacBook Pro devices.

To support you in your role, you'll have access to some fantastic learning and development resources; conferences with industry expert speakers, comprehensive instructor-led training, and subscriptions to digital training solutions such as Cloud Academy. You'll also have access to support through direct Slack channels with our partners such as AWS, UiPath and MongoDB for day-to-day learning and problem-solving. The Garage has a strong track record of recognising and developing talent, with engineers progressing based on merit and demonstrated performance.

Responsibilities include:

• Develop features and components under guidance from senior engineers following team standards.
• Write clean, tested code following best practices and coding standards.
• Fix bugs and resolve defects in development environments, learning debugging techniques.
• Participate in code reviews, reviewing others' code and learning from feedback on your own.
• Write and maintain unit tests for your code to ensure quality.
• Create technical documentation for the features you build.
• Learn AWS services, automation platforms, and modern development practices through hands-on work.
• Collaborate with team members in daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and other agile ceremonies.
• Ask questions and seek guidance when blocked or unsure, developing problem-solving skills.
• Build your skills through pairing with senior engineers, training courses, and hands-on development.

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:

• Demonstrable programming fundamentals using JavaScript/TypeScript and Node.js, with experience of at least one modern framework (e.g. React, Next.js, or Express).
• Knowledge and experience of at least one SQL or NoSQL database technology (e.g. Postgres, MySQL, or MongoDB).
• Awareness of and some practical exposure to cloud platforms (e.g. AWS or Azure).
• Awareness of automated testing and CI/CD pipelines.
• An understanding of the software development lifecycle and experience working as part of a collaborative development team.

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact aisha.gultasab@dwp.gov.uk

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing

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

• Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

Hybrid Working

This role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work.

If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office.

If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.

Salary Information

New entrants to the Civil Service will join on band minimum.

Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer will maintain their current substantive salary.

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or receive a 10% increase applied to their current substantive salary, whichever is greater.

Any temporary allowances that you are currently in receipt of will not form part of the calculation to determine your pay. Any allowances that are in payment will cease when you move into your new role.

Job contact :

• Name : Aisha Gultasab
• Email : aisha.gultasab@dwp.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : digital.recruitmentupdates@dwp.gov.uk