Junior Developer jobs in West Midlands Region

About the Employer

Company Name: Life Development Solutions

Location:

80-81 High Street
Dudley
DY1 1PY

Life Development Solutions (or just Life Dev) is an IT consulting company based in the West Midlands. We provide software development and develops consultancy to a broad range of business clients. We have over 26 years of experience in the industry and are looking to expand our team in order to better support our growing client base.

We offer a full spectrum of software development and devops services. Typically we get involved when clients have problems that cannot be solved with existing resources - identifying performance issues or complex bugs in website infrastructure is a speciality.

We often work with other software or design agencies as an enhancement to their existing team. Providing advice and support where required. This work can be anything from coding to managing cloud services to building complex deployment pipelines.

Our regular work also includes long term development projects, such as Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM) or Web App development.

Core company values include: diligence, respect, curiosity and ethical conduct.

We pride ourselves on meeting and exceeding the expectations of our clients, while also being courteous and approachable to in-house development, project management or design teams. This makes LifeDev a pleasant company to work with for our clients, and a happy
working environment for our employees.

The technologies, services and frameworks in use by Life Dev are always evolving, and we never shy away from a potential project due to an unfamiliar language or framework alone. However some of the current mainstays are listed below:
● PHP (Laravel, Yii2, WordPress, etc)
● HTML & CSS (SASS)
● JavaScript (some React DOM, Node.js - too many frameworks to list)
● Databases (MySQL, Firebase, Redis etc)
● Containerisation (Docker, DDEV, etc)
● Website optimisation (speed, security, responsiveness, and accessibility)
● Generative AI automations (APIs, services etc)
● Debugging and testing of any system.
● Integration and Automation - using 3rd party APIs and bespoke APIs (Microsoft,
Google, Facebook, LinkedIn etc).
● Data processing, complex imports, and export routines.
● Cloud platform management (AWS & Digital Ocean, some Azure)
● Scalability, redundancy, and security

Personal projects are actively encouraged at Life Dev. While time is not provided within working hours for these projects, the company will support any personal project that is beneficial to the personal professional development of the employee - personal web projects, APIs, building games etc are all good examples of this.

What you'll do at work

The successful candidate can expect action packed and interesting working days. Due to the range of projects and clients there are opportunities to work in a range of frameworks and environments.

Tasks are organised into larger projects, with the successful candidate working alongside a project manager and one or more developers or engineers.

A typical day would consist of one or more of the following tasks:
● Writing code or markup (PHP, Javascript, HTML, CSS etc)
● Testing code (own or someone else’s)
● Using source control (Git)
● Handling first line and second line support requests.
● Communicating directly with clients and/or other team members.
● Analysing problems or evaluating solutions

During the day one can expect multiple video/phone calls with clients or other team members as well as regular contact via business instant messaging tools (ie Slack, Teams etc)

Skills Required

• Communication skills
• IT skills
• Attention to detail
• Organisation skills
• Problem solving skills
• Administrative skills
• Analytical skills
• Logical
• Team working
• Initiative
• Non judgemental
• Patience

Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.

Other Requirements

Must be a commutable distance to the office. The position is mostly office based, however working from home is permitted in certain circumstances.

The usual hours of working will be decided during on-boarding, and any deviations to be planned at least one week in advance.

Occasionally it will be necessary to meet at a client’s location. These could be anywhere in the UK and depending on the location transport will be arranged through the company either by car or public transport.

It is not expected that this position will require any international travel.

Training to be provided

Software Developer Level 4 Apprenticeship Standard:

The successful candidate will undertake a 24 month, nationally recognised qualification through TDM. This is a work-based learning programme which will require commitment to block weeks in an online training room once every quarter working towards the qualification along with weekly off the job training and monthly coaching sessions.

You will be required to demonstrate through the standard that you meet all competencies and behaviours, which will lead to the achievement of the qualification. You will have a designated mentor in the workplace to support your learning and at the end of programme will be assessed via an external assessment body. This is a Level 4 qualification. Knowledge modules will include:

Software Development Methodologies and Testing

Systems Analysis and Design

Algorithms, Data Structures and User Interfaces

OOP and Design Patterns

After this apprenticeship

Potential for progression into full-time role or Degree Apprenticeship.

Working week details

30 hours per week

Flexible working hours. Typically within Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Very occasionally out of hours work will be required (international work or time sensitive deployments etc)

Benefits

Open to providing online training resources (Udemy etc) if requested.

Free co.uk domain name registered for employee’s personal projects and complementary web hosting for the duration of employment.

Job Types: Full-time, Apprenticeship

Pay: £12,480.00 per year

Work Location: In person