Developer (Milton Keynes, ENG, GB, MK7 6AA)

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 the Role

Data and Student Analytics supports stakeholders from across the University by enabling them to make evidence-based decisions using insight and analytics. You will be working in a team which is responsible for developing a suite of web-based applications which initially support stakeholders in understanding student behaviour and performance. 

In the role of Applications Developer you will be interacting with a cross-functional team that is developing innovative applications using the latest in technology.

You will be joining a team that is always evolving and innovating to deliver the new opportunities afforded by new technology to offer the best teaching and learning experience to our students.  The Open University mission is to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. Our vision is to provide a life-changing career for the people who work here and through them and what they do to reach more students with life-changing learning that meets their needs and enriches society.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the development of high-quality front-end web applications for staff and students, working closely with the senior developer to contribute to design, implementation, and ongoing enhancements.
• Assist in the deployment, monitoring, and maintenance of web applications, ensuring stability and performance across environments.
• Leverage Azure suite to develop Application Programming Interface's (API's) conforming to The Open University’s API standards.
• Implement continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines to automate software delivery and streamline the development process.
• Produce designs for systems which are feasible and cost effective and meet requirements.
• Participate in a collaborative development process that includes peer code reviews.
• Provide day-to-day support by troubleshooting user-reported issues, resolving bugs, and collaborating with developers and the product team to meet service-level expectations.
• Develop, document, communicate, and enforce technology standards policies.
• Liaise with IT teams to resolve any cross-function design issues and escalate, if necessary.
• Provide technical support in incident and problem resolution.

About You

Essential:

• Proven experience in .NET and Angular frameworks for building modern web applications.
• Proven experience working with Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture and its practical application.
• Skilled in web and UI design, with knowledge of web standards and usability principles.
• Proficient in version control using Git, and experienced in setting up Continous Integration/Continuous Delivery pipelines.
• Understanding of relational databases, preferably Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL), including schema design, indexing strategies, and performance tuning.
• Proficient in automated unit and integration testing, applying TDD principles when beneficial to the development process.
• Collaborative experience in multidisciplinary development teams, working across multiple technologies.
• Knowledge and experience of software engineering tools, practises, methods and standards including some of but not limited to Cloud IaaS, Platform as Service (PaaS) and Software as Service (SaaS) Services, Infrastructure as Code, Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery.
• Able to demonstrate the full range of system engineering skills from design to post-implementation support.
• Knowledge and experience of creating and applying standards and best practice in IT delivery.
• Understanding of Azure DevOps and cloud performance engineering, with a focus on reliability.
• Knowledge of Agile/Scrum methodologies

Desirable:

• Experience of working in the Higher Education sector.
• Knowledge of Azure workstack, ensuring efficient data storage and retrieval in a cloud environment.
• Certified as a Cloud Developer from a reputed public cloud.

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 expect this to be approximately 2-3 times 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 1 December 2025.

Early closing date notification

We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.

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 essential requirments for this role as detailed in 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.