Senior Front End Developer - Defence

Introduction

At IBM CIC, we provide technical and industry expertise to a wide range of public and private sector clients in the UK.

A career in IBM CIC means you’ll have the opportunity to work with leading professionals across multiple industries to improve the hybrid cloud and AI journey for the most innovative and valuable companies in the world. You will get the chance to deliver effective solutions, driving meaningful business change for our clients, using some of the latest technology platforms.

Curiosity and a constant quest for knowledge serve as the foundation to success here. You’ll be encouraged and supported to constantly reinvent yourself, focusing on skills in demand in an ever changing market. You’ll be working with diverse teams, coming up with creative solutions which impact a wide network of clients, who may be at their site or one of our CIC or IBM locations. Our culture of evolution centres on long-term career growth and development opportunities in an environment that embraces your unique skills and experience.

We Offer

• Many training opportunities from classroom to e-learning, mentoring and coaching programs and the chance to gain industry recognized certifications

Regular and frequent promotion opportunities to ensure you can drive and develop your career with us

Feedback and checkpoints throughout the year

Diversity & Inclusion as an essential and authentic component of our culture through our policies and process as well as our Employee Champion teams and support networks

A culture where your ideas for growth and innovation are always welcome

Internal recognition programs for peer-to-peer appreciation as well as from manager to employees

Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme

More traditional benefits, such as 25 days holiday (in addition to public holidays), private medical, dental & optical cover, online shopping discounts, an Employee Assistance Program, life assurance and a group personal pension plan of an additional 5% of your base salary paid by us monthly to save for your future.

Your Role And Responsibilities

We are seeking a dynamic and creative Senior Front-End Experience Application Developer to join our IBM Defence and Public Sector teams. In this role, you will help deliver secure, high‑impact digital solutions for government and national security clients. You will transform visually rich designs into fully functional, responsive web and mobile applications using modern f

ront‑end technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and associated libraries and frameworks. Your expertise will be key in creating intuitive, user‑centric interfaces that are both visually compelling and technically robust.

You will be part of teams working on mission‑critical public sector and defence projects, pushing the boundaries of digital innovation while operating within secure and high‑assurance environments. If you are passionate about crafting exceptional user experiences and thrive in a collaborative, fast‑paced setting, we would love to hear from you.

IBM office location

This will be determined by your home address and the nearest IBM office: Hursley, Leicester, Manchester, or London.

Client sites

Include Cheltenham, London, and Manchester. You will be required to spend a minimum of three days per week either on client site or at your closest IBM office location, depending on project needs.

Responsibilities

• Translate UI/UX designs into high‑quality, maintainable code following responsive design and cross‑browser compatibility principles
• Collaborate closely with UX designers, back‑end engineers, and multidisciplinary delivery teams to define and implement application functionality

Build prototypes and conduct thorough testing to identify, troubleshoot, and resolve usability and performance issues

Stay current with emerging front‑end technologies and industry trends, applying them to enhance application performance and user experience

Maintain clean, efficient code and documentation to support ongoing development and collaboration

Mentor junior and graduate developers, providing guidance on technical delivery and professional consulting skills

Preferred Education

Bachelor's Degree

Required Technical And Professional Expertise

• Front‑end specialist with strong UI focus, with full‑stack experience as needed
• Mandatory skills: React, TypeScript, GraphQL, Node, Express, Postgres, Docker, Stencil/Web Components, Cypress
• Deep understanding of responsive design, component libraries, and delivering interfaces that align with design systems and brand guidelines
• Proficient in modern front‑end frameworks such as React (primary), Angular, or Vue.js
• Skilled with Git and standard version‑control workflows including Git Flow
• Strong problem‑solving abilities, high attention to detail, and a commitment to building high‑quality user interfaces
  
  

Eligibility Requirements

As an equal‑opportunities employer, we welcome applications from all backgrounds. However, to be eligible for this role you must have the right to work in the UK. We are unable to provide visa sponsorship. You must be a UK resident and have lived continuously in the UK for the last 10 years, and be able to hold or obtain UK government security clearance.

Preferred Technical And Professional Experience

• Strong front‑end development experience with modern JavaScript frameworks such as React and TypeScript, with an eye for clean, high‑quality UI implementation
• Experience with server‑side technologies including Node.js and full‑stack frameworks such as Next.js
• Ability to build APIs from scratch using Node.js and integrate them cleanly with front‑end applications
• Familiarity with AWS services commonly used in defence and secure environments (e.g., Lambda, API Gateway, S3, CloudFront, Cognito, DynamoDB)
• Experience deploying and maintaining applications in containerised environments, including Docker and Kubernetes
• Strong understanding of branching strategies, deployment pipelines, and CI/CD workflows