Senior Software Engineer

Project: DHCW SOW WP82
Role requested: Senior Software Engineer
Seniority: Lead
Days per week: 5
Security clearance requirement: BPSS
Skills required:
Technical Stack & Tooling

• Languages & Frameworks: Strong .NET and C# development experience. Cloud Platform: Hands-on Microsoft Azure (App Services, Key Vault, Managed Identity, and cloud deployment architecture).
  

• DevOps & Pipelines: Azure DevOps mastery—configuring, maintaining, and diagnosing automated CI/CD pipelines, YAML definitions, build/test controls, and release management.
  

• Testing Tooling: Frameworks for unit and integration testing (e.g., xUnit/NUnit, SpecFlow/Reqnroll, HttpClient).
  

• Domain Knowledge: Experience with API- and integration-heavy systems, database interactions, and healthcare interoperability standards.
  

Engineering Practices

• Test-Driven Development (TDD): Proven expertise in writing automated tests first to shape implementation and reduce rework.
  

• Safe Refactoring: Ability to write characterisation tests to safely improve high-risk or legacy code without breaking existing functionality.
  

• Flow & Delivery Controls: Micro-batching work, reducing Work In Progress (WIP), trunk-based branching strategies, automated quality gates, and code reviews.
  

• Controlled Cloud Delivery: Managing secrets, environment configuration, monitoring / observability, and conducting release and recovery rehearsals.
  

Coaching & Advisory (SFIA Level 5 - Ensure/Advise)

• Hands-On Pairing: Deep experience with pair programming across engineers of varying experience levels.
  

• Capability Transfer: Ability to teach, explain trade-offs, and use questioning and worked examples rather than completing tasks in isolation.
  

• Progressive Independence: Skill in stepping back deliberately from leading to pairing, to observing and advising so internal teams retain full ownership.
  

• Technical Decision-Making: Ability to articulate risks and options in high-assurance/regulated environments and document them using Architecture Decision Records (ADRs).
  

Project context brief:
Provision of 4 Senior Software Engineering Advisers and Coaches operating at SFIA Level 5 (Ensure/Advise) to work embedded within DHCW product teams (WIS Team 1, WIS Team 2, Choose Pharmacy, and PCMH Product Reporting).
The primary scope is to upskill internal DHCW engineers and establish sustainable, independent engineering practices through live backlog delivery, hands-on pair programming, and progressive capability transfer. Key technical delivery areas include:

• Modern Engineering Practices: Embedding Test-Driven Development (TDD), behaviour-focused automated testing, characterisation testing, and safe refactoring on legacy/high-risk code.
  

• Controlled Cloud Delivery: Enhancing Azure DevOps CI/CD build, test, and deployment pipelines, automated quality gates, environment configuration, and release/recovery rehearsals.
  

• PCMH Product Reporting Tool: Co-developing a cloud-hosted product reporting capability to automate reporting on product value, delivery flow, and system health while establishing a team-owned route from commit to cloud deployment.
  

• Capability Ownership & Exit: Ensuring all critical practices, pipelines, and deployment processes are fully understood and owned by internal DHCW engineers to eliminate ongoing supplier dependency.