Lead Digital Developer

About the Role

Derbyshire County Council (DCC) is revolutionising Adult Social Care & Health with SmartCareAI, an innovative AI powered tool that automates care assessment transcription and summarisation, freeing up practitioners to focus on the people they serve.

We’re looking for a skilled Lead Digital Developer to work alongside our inhouse developer to maintain and enhance this ground-breaking solution. You'll play a pivotal role in supporting its rollout across Adult Social Care & Health, troubleshooting real-world issues, and supporting frontline staff in their use of the tool.

What You’ll Do

• Collaborate closely with the existing developer to ensure the SmartCare AI tool is robust, efficient, and fit for ongoing use.
• Design and optimise models for speech recognition, transcription, and intelligent summarisation, using Whisper, JAX, and ChatGPT.
• Continuously improve the tool based on feedback from Adult Social Care & Health professionals.
• Provide hands-on support and troubleshooting to staff using the solution across the service.
• Ensure high usability and accessibility by developing user-friendly interfaces with HTML/CSS and lightweight JavaScript where needed.
• Assist in ethical implementation, including data privacy, consent, and bias mitigation.

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong experience in Python for building and maintaining pipelines.
• Familiarity with AWS services (especially EC2).
• Working knowledge of AI/ML techniques, particularly NLP and summarisation.
• Experience with ChatGPT/OpenAI APIs, and/or Whisper and JAX for audio transcription tasks.
• Good front-end skills (HTML/CSS/JS) to help refine and deploy accessible UI components.
• Experience collaborating with developers and supporting technical rollouts in complex environments.
• Strong interpersonal and problem-solving skills to work directly with service users and support teams.

Nice to Have

• Experience in local government, adult social care & health, or healthcare domains.
• Understanding of UK public service data ethics, and AI in regulated sectors.
• Knowledge of accessibility and usability testing in frontline settings.

What we offer:

• A supportive and inclusive team environment.
• Opportunities for professional development and career progression.
• Flexible working arrangements.
• Local Government Pension Scheme.
• Flexi time, allowing up to an additional 2 days of leave per month
• Derbyshire Rewards - Discounts from high street retailers and more
• Generous annual leave and flexi time scheme
• A chance to contribute to meaningful projects that improve services for residents and communities.

If you are a forward-thinking developer with a passion for innovation, we would love to hear from you!

Please upload a copy of your CV and include a covering letter with your application.

Due to this post having administrative privileges within the Council’s IT systems, and in order to comply with the Public Services Network requirements, the successful candidate will be required to undertake a Basic criminal record check. The possession of a criminal record will not necessarily prevent an applicant from obtaining this post, as all cases are judged individually according to the nature of the role and information provided. Click here to see our policy on criminal background checks.

Apply now and take the first step towards a fulfilling career with us! By joining Derbyshire County Council you will have access to a range of amazing rewards and employee benefits, including our generous annual leave scheme, excellent local government pension and fantastic employee discounts.

This role currently offers hybrid working options which will be to subject service needs, there'll be an opportunity to discuss working arrangements for this position at interview.

We welcome applications from individuals who share our values — being Collaborative, Innovative, Empowered and Accountable. These values describe who we are and what we stand for as a council. They help shape our culture, encourage consistent behaviour and guide how we work together to make a positive difference for both our employees and the residents we serve.