Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to YouTube by clicking this link).

About Digital Services

Digital Services is at the heart of delivering life-changing learning experiences that enrich society. We combine trusted design, data expertise, and cutting-edge technology to support lifelong learning.

Our objectives are to:

• Enhance the student and staff experience through simple, evidence-based solutions.
• Deliver value iteratively, securely, and at speed.
• Foster a vibrant, supportive workplace that embraces continuous learning and growth, empowering everyone to succeed.

As a service-led institution, we are committed to simplifying and improving how we work by organizing ourselves around the services we provide. This enables us to design and deliver outstanding services effectively and efficiently.

With our ethos of being “open to people, places, methods, and ideas,” we proudly support students in every setting imaginable—from submarines to prisons, and everywhere in between. We take pride in enabling our academics to teach and our students to learn, no matter the circumstances.

About the Role

The Senior Software Engineer (Design System) role (known internally as Senior Engineer) sits within the Design System team, responsible for building and evolving a shared UI component library and related assets used by multiple product teams across the organisation. You will work closely with designers and engineers to translate design intent into high‑quality, accessible, and reusable components, enabling consistent user experiences at scale. The role focuses on front‑end and user‑interface capabilities, developer experience, and supporting consuming teams through documentation, versioning, and ongoing maintenance.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead Software Development Projects: Guide the design, development, and implementation of software solutions, ensuring they are robust, scalable, and aligned with The Open University objectives. Provide technical leadership and mentorship, and may include line management, to junior team members.
• Architect and Design Systems: Develop and refine system architectures and software designs that meet requirements and technical specifications. Ensure that all designs are maintainable, secure, and optimized for performance, and systems are designed to be observable, supportable, and resilient in live operation, with appropriate monitoring, alerting, and operational documentation in place.
• Drive Technical Excellence: Champion best practices in software development, including coding standards, TDD and automated testing approaches (e.g. unit and integration),, and version control, to ensure the delivery of high-quality, scalable and maintainable software products.
• Oversee System Integration: Manage the integration of multiple software components, ensuring seamless interaction and functionality across the system.
• Data Management and Analysis: Lead efforts in data modelling, database design, and business intelligence to support data-driven decision making and improve system performance.
• Enhance User Experience: Collaborate with UX designers to ensure that user experience is a key consideration in the development process. Translate user needs into functional software features that deliver value.
• Monitor and Assess Emerging Technologies: Stay informed about new and emerging technologies, evaluating their potential to enhance current and future projects.
• Implement Security and Compliance Standards: Ensure that software solutions comply with security standards and industry regulations. Implement best practices to protect data and maintain system integrity.
• Quality Assurance and Testing: Oversee comprehensive testing strategies, including functional, non-functional, and security testing, to ensure software reliability and performance.
• Support Operational Excellence: Contribute to the stability and performance of software applications by supporting incident and problem management, utilising observability data, as part of a build‑run‑own approach, including out-of-hours as required, as well as service level and capacity planning.
• Conduct Services, Products and Requirements Analysis: Work closely with stakeholders to understand their needs, define technical requirements, and assess the feasibility of proposed solutions. Document and manage requirements to ensure alignment with project goals.
• Resource and Supplier Management: Assist in managing resource allocation and collaborate with external vendors to ensure project needs are met effectively and efficiently.

About You

Key Skills and Experience:

• Proven Software Engineering Expertise: Extensive experience in software development (coding, test writing and debugging), reviewing other people’s work, with a deep understanding of programming, system design, and testing practices.
• Strong System and Software Design Skills: Ability to design scalable and efficient systems, ensuring architectural integrity and alignment with The Open University objectives, with experience contributing to systems built using modern architectural patterns such as microservices, API‑first design, and cloud‑native platforms.
• Advanced Data Management: Skilled in data modelling, database design, and implementing business intelligence solutions to support analytics and decision-making.
• User-Centric Development: Experience in integrating user experience design principles into the software development process to create intuitive and effective user interfaces.
• Emerging Technology Enthusiast: Passion for exploring and integrating new technologies to enhance software solutions and business capabilities.
• Security and Compliance Focus: Knowledgeable in implementing security protocols and ensuring compliance with industry standards to protect systems and data.
• Quality Assurance Leader: Strong focus on quality, with experience in leading comprehensive testing strategies to ensure the reliability and performance of software products.
• Effective Analysis and Requirement Management: Proven ability to translate user needs into technical requirements and assess the feasibility of proposed solutions.
• Operational and Resource Management: Experience in managing resources, supporting application operations, and working with external suppliers to meet project demands.
• Modern Engineering Practices and AI Enablement: Experience working in a modern engineering environment, applying practices such as automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, cloud-native development, and DevOps ways of working. Demonstrates effective use of AI-assisted development tools to enhance productivity, improve code quality, support testing and documentation, and enable faster delivery, while being mindful of governance, security, and cost considerations.

Behaviours:

• Leadership and Mentorship: You lead by example, providing guidance and support to team members, and fostering a collaborative and inclusive team environment.
• Analytical and Strategic Thinking: You are capable of understanding complex business challenges and developing strategic technical solutions to address them.
• Proactive and Innovative: You actively seek out opportunities for improvement and are eager to integrate new technologies and methodologies into your work.
• Attention to Detail: You ensure accuracy and quality in all aspects of your work, from coding and testing to documentation and analysis.
• Effective Communicator: You are able to convey technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, ensuring clear understanding and alignment.

Support with your application

If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.

What's in it for you?

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).

Flexible working

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d anticipate this to be on average once per month.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

We anticipate that interviews for this role will be taking place online via Microsoft Teams during the week commencing 15 June 2026. 

Early closing date notification

While most roles will remain open until the advertised closing date, applications may be reviewed on an ongoing basis. In some cases, vacancies may close earlier if a sufficient number of suitable applications have been received and equality impacts have been appropriately considered. All roles will remain advertised for a minimum of one week before any early closure is implemented.

If you have started an application or were in the process of applying when the advert closed, we encourage you to get in touch. We are committed to understanding individual circumstances and can offer further support where needed, including reasonable adjustments for applicants with protected characteristics.

How to apply

To apply for this role please submit the following documents:

• CV
• A personal statement of up to 1000 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the criteria for this role as detailed above within the job description.

You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.