Ready to work somewhere that cares more about how you build software than how fast you can ship it? At Opencast, we don’t measure developers by the number of tickets you complete. We care about engineering craft, clean design and thoughtful problem-solving. Opencast consultants deliver in complex environments, pairing often and working with others who take pride in doing things properly: TDD, emerging design, refactoring and leaving code better than they found it. We build software we are proud of, and our clients trust us not just to code but to think, challenge and guide. If you value simple and robust solutions and want a role where your judgment matters as much as your keyboard, you will fit right in. The role We’re looking for Contractors in Software Development (Senior level or Technical Lead) to help our major clients transform. Software developers at Opencast care about building products right and combine their own experience and approach with our company values. They are tech agnostic, have expertise in agile methodologies, extreme programming practices and use industry-leading programming languages to deliver agile transformation. Our approach to software development is collaborative, focused on keeping things simple, and we use test driven development and pair programming as best practice. Working with clients and key stakeholders is a crucial part of a consultancy role. Our developers are inclusive team players that listen, collaborate, can positively challenge and manage expectations when needed but most of all are always willing to teach and help others. Leaving a client with improved ways of working, working technology and a good experience from discovery through to live is the priority. Contractors at Opencast follow the same principles as permanent consultants. The roles are varied, technical, and never confined to any one provider or solution. Requirements Due to the nature of this role, applicants must either currently hold active Security Check (SC) Clearance or be eligible to obtain it. Eligibility typically requires UK citizenship and continuous residence in the UK for the past five years, with no single absence exceeding 28 consecutive days. As attendance at client sites is a routine part of the role’s working pattern and involves occasional travel, travel expenses are not covered. Experience in delivering digital services for the UK government is highly valuable for many of our projects. Therefore, familiarity with the GDS toolkit will be beneficial. Technical Skills - Expertise in Java and/or Scala is required - Experience in other languages such as Javascript, Typescript, Kotlin, Python or Ruby is also valuable - Experience in a technical leadership role - Deep understanding of programming paradigm, code design, testing, accessibility, performance and security - Proven ability to apply different testing tools and methods in practice - Knowledge or experience of delivering complex services to Government Digital Service (GDS) standards - Being comfortable with new technology, t-shaped and comfortable with ongoing learning and development is key to success - Experience with agile methodology A senior level contractor in software development at Opencast is responsible for: - Driving the elaboration of their team’s backlog - Setting testing strategies to match industry standards - Being a technical expert in their team (or acting as the team lead) - Leading the technical representation in a project discovery - Acting as a technical lead in the team, enabling them to achieve their full potential Salary £450 - £600 per day (working inside IR35) Where you’ll work This role requires regular on-site attendance across our HQ, hub offices, client sites and home. Applicants must be able to commute to offices and client sites as part of their normal working arrangements, as travel is essential to fulfilling the responsibilities of the role. We include you We welcome candidates from all identities, attributes, ways of thinking and backgrounds to thrive in a career at Opencast. Our aim is for the diversity of our people to be reflected in the solutions we deliver, to help create a fairer society for all. Interview Interviews will be conducted via Microsoft Teams. We’re happy to make adjustments to support your needs. Want to know more? Visit our website for more details.

The Role You’ll lead on responding to outages, triaging issues, balancing stakeholder priorities/concerns, and keeping open communication channels. You’ll be responsible for designing, developing, and implementing continuous deployment solutions that help our clients to deliver software faster and more efficiently. You’ll be keen to understand our clients’ ways of working and will have an enthusiasm to learn new tools and technologies as needed. Essential experience We want you to have demonstrable experience in DevOps practices and appreciate that Cloud & Platform Engineering are big topics. Ultimately, we’re looking for talented engineers who can learn modern technologies in the digital space. In the interview, please show your experience in: · Designing, building, and testing software release processes that cover the entire SDLC. · Creating, modifying, and maintaining complex CI/CD pipelines. · Creating dashboards and visualisations for application performance that proactively identify and address potential problems before they occur. · Using automated testing to detect security issues/vulnerabilities in application and/or infrastructure code, thereby detecting issues before it reaches production (aka Shift-Left). · Strong experience in operating and maintaining services primarily in any of the BIG three public cloud providers (AWS, Azure, and GCP). Desirable experience Some other areas of experience that are not essential but still relevant to the role: · Identifying problems using RCA or 5-Whys methods and suggesting solutions to reduce the likelihood of incidents reoccurring. · A strong understanding of cloud networking and security concepts. · Understanding the principles of containerisation, and how to control and orchestrate groups of containers in production environments. · Writing clean, organised, structured and version-controlled code. · Knowledge of at least one scripting language that enables you to perform more complex automation tasks thereby reducing manual toil. · Preference for using CLI tools over relying on web portals. · Understanding SRE (live services) ways of working, that enables you to better increase reliability and availability of the service you support. · Auditing your service for FinOps and SecOps related compliance issues. Must be eligible for UK Security Clearance. If you don’t have all this experience please do still apply, as we can coach you in these areas if you join us.

Ready to automate, innovate and make a real impact?

Do you want to build reliable, scalable systems that make a real difference to millions of people? Do you want to work at a certified B Corp with an inclusive and learning culture as part of a diverse team of great people?

If so, Opencast could be the place for you. We’re a growing tech consultancy that creates user-centred solutions with purpose for our clients in government, healthcare and purpose-driven businesses. Working in DevOps, you’ll build and maintain the systems that let teams respond quickly to needs. You’llwork on high-impact projects, helping to build reliable, scalable systems. We align work to industry-recognised roles such as Build & Release Engineer (BRE), Platform Engineer (PLE) or Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) and, where needed, to more specialised areas such as security, cloud hosting, infrastructure or networking.

What’s life like as a DevOps consultant at Opencast?

At Opencast, we love to keep things simple, and we love automation.

It’s not the same as your standard Devops Consultant job. Depending on your client’s needs, you’ll take on a range of roles. These will include:

• Taking the lead on responding to outages, triaging issues, balancing stakeholder priorities/concerns, and keeping communication channels open with all parties.
• Developing, and implementing continuous deployment solutions that help our clients to deliver software faster and more efficiently.
• Collaborating with our clients to understand their ways of working and will have an enthusiasm to learn new tools and technologies as needed.
• Contributing within Opencast communities.
• Ensure that work is carried out in accordance with Opencast’s quality, environmental, and information security policies and procedures, as well as applicable customer policies, standards, and procedures while working on client.

We care about building things right. We believe in good devops practices and keeping things simple. We want to support you as much as we can on interiorising our approach to devops engineering and you supporting others.

• We are proud consultants who combine our own experience and approach with our company values.
• We are comfortable with new tech. We are empowered, cloud native, vendor agnostic devops engineers. We are empathetic, patient and care about quality.
• We know when to pick our battles and how to manage expectations. We are humble, inclusive team players that listen and collaborate, with zero egos!
• We’re always willing to teach and help others (inside or outside of our team). And we’re always willing to learn.
• It’s a varied job that keeps you super technical and excited.

Salary:

• £50,000 - £60,000

Some of the benefits our offer includes:

• A competitive pension, health cash plan, share options and discretionary bonus.
• Flexible hours and 25 days’ holiday.
• People to support you every step of the way.

Where you’ll work:

• Your working time at Opencast will be split between multiple locations, including from our HQ and hub locations, client site or home. Travel is part of life at Opencast, and takes in account requirements of your work, our clients and your team.

We include you:

• We welcome candidates from all identities, attributes, ways of thinking and backgrounds to thrive in a career at Opencast. Our aim is for the diversity of our people to be reflected in the solutions we deliver, to help create a fairer society for all.

Interview:

• Job interviews are on Microsoft Teams. We’ll make any adjustments to help you.