Job Description

Ref Number

B01-05150

Professional Expertise

IT and Digital

Department

Vice-President (Operations) (B01)

Location

London

Working Pattern

Full time

Salary

68,284-76,244

Contract Type

Permanent

Working Type

Hybrid

Available for Secondment

No

Closing Date

11-Nov-2025

About us

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Information Services Division (ISD) is the primary provider of IT services to UCL. We support and enhance learning, teaching, research and administrative processes by providing information- and technology-related services to over 50,000 staff and students of UCL and associated institutions.



Our ambition is to be the leading IT services group in the HE sector and we are growing our team's capability in experience/UX, agile development, security, cloud, service management and partnering. We are modernising our technology foundations, digitising the processes of the university to transform experience for students and staff, and partnering across the university to drive differentiation in UCL education and research.

About the role

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This Lead Moodle Developer (Principal Software Engineer) post is in the Digital Learning Environments product team which has been one of the early adopters of Agile Ways of Working, automated testing, Docker, DevOps and Public Cloud within ISD.



We are a fully multi-disciplinary product team of Moodle Developers, Learning Technologists and Analyst Developers (Ops) working together. After many years focused on infrastructure to handle ever growing usage and student numbers, the team is now focused on implementing new functionality and responding to user needs. With an established track record we are now accelerating our development plans.



The team values being part of the open source Moodle community, providing feedback and fixes upstream wherever possible to community plugins and core Moodle. Our plugins for the rest of the community to make use of.

Main purpose of the job

Take a lead on the development and maintenance of the Moodle based systems and provide key input into the development direction of the LMS. Drive the development standards and embed automated testing in our development practices. Mentor and support Moodle Developers and junior Developers Working within the Digital Learning Environments Team using your software design and programming skills, including the use of PHP, Behat, git, Docker, MySQL, JavaScript (and associated frameworks) and other emerging technologies, in a Moodle environment. You will personally tackle the most complex problems in at least two of the specialist areas of Moodle development: caching and large scale Moodle performance, integration, UI or core Moodle Major Feature Development.

Duties and responsibilities

Develop new functionality as part of a cross functional team, using early feedback throughout the sprints to ensure it fulfils the underlying requirements.

Using Agile methods to ensure deliveries are planned and managed appropriately, working closely with the design leads to break down solutions into manageable pieces of work, and ensure we deliver the right components at the right time. Create a highly collaborative environment, to ensure the UCL-developed code meets the Moodle Coding Standards, demonstrate innovation with new technologies, own good working practices, solve problems and work as a member of an evolving team. As a Lead Moodle Developer in the Digital Learning Environments team, you will work hand-in-hand with the rest of the team during sprints to implement new features and improvements required for functionality change to go live as an MVP and be incrementally improved. Drive the development and maintenance of best practices, including delivery, coding and configuration, in line with the quality, regulatory and security needs of UCL. Responsible for implementing enhancements and features to the UCL Moodle environment. Engage with the wider Moodle community where larger developments are contributed to upstream

In the event we get a high number of applications, we may close the advert early before the published closing date. As a minimum we will keep all adverts open for 2 weeks.

About you

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Provide technical leadership for Moodle developments

Be the technical expert and make technical decisions as necessary Establish and proliferate architectural patterns, building blocks and standards and drive consistency and capability within the team Liaise with other ISD teams to ensure the production of User Interface designs that optimise user experience and ensure an appropriate degree of commonality across applications within UCL. Provide planning information, estimates and task dependencies. Direct the work of other developers on the product.

Application and Software Release Management

Provide a significant contribution to test strategies and plans as determined by the Moodle Testing Strategy. As the person responsible for software robustness, you will lead on all testing and make testing decisions. Perform fault fixes and make decisions on the best approach to issue resolution. Operate defined release management processes for both Preview and Staging/Production technical environments, specifically: Efficiently managing the release of code through Source Code Management using Git and Docker into the live environments Continuously deliver into a Preview environment to gather regular feedback during development. Implementing suitable safeguards such as user access controls to ensure the integrity of those environments.

What we offer

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As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:


41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days) Additional 5 days' annual leave purchase scheme Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE) Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan Immigration loan Relocation scheme for certain posts On-Site nursery On-site gym Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service Discounted medical insurance

Visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/rewards-and-benefits to find out more.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

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As London's Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world's talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.



We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL's workforce.



These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.