Full Stack Engineer - Justice AI Unit (Ref: 17144)

Job summary

This position is based Nationally

Job description

Full Stack Engineer - Justice AI Unit

Our justice system faces serious challenges, from rising demand and staff shortages to siloed systems and inconsistent access. AI presents an opportunity to address these problems at scale. But this opportunity must be seized with care.

The Justice AI Unit is a small, fast-moving and innovative team. We build and ship products quickly across the Ministry of Justice. By embedding AI that enhances, not replaces, human judgement, we aim to deliver better outcomes, faster services, and greater fairness for all.

About the Role

As a Full Stack Engineer at the Justice AI Unit, you will build and maintain AI-powered products that transform how courts, prisons, and probation services operate. You'll work on scaled products like Justice Transcribe- a production application that uses speech-to-text and LLM technology to automatically generate case notes for frontline justice staff. This is a hands-on engineering role where you'll own features end to end: from database schema to API design to polished user interfaces. You'll work directly with users to understand their needs, ship iteratively and see your code make a real difference in one of the most complex and vital systems in the country. Join us to transform justice through practical, responsible AI.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain full-stack features across our Next.js frontend and FastAPI backend, ensuring seamless user experiences for frontline justice staff
• Develop and integrate AI capabilities including LLM workflows, speech-to-text processing, and intelligent document generation
• Own end-to-end delivery: from designing database schemas and API contracts to building accessible, responsive UIs
• Work with production infrastructure on Azure, including App Services, Blob Storage, PostgreSQL, and container deployments managed via Terraform
• Collaborate directly with users in courts, prisons, and probation to understand their operational challenges and co-build solutions
• Ship reliable, well-tested code with comprehensive unit and integration tests, observability, and error monitoring
• Contribute to technical decisions around architecture, tooling, and AI model selection

Essential Criteria

• Strong experience building production web applications with modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks (React, Next.js) and Python backends (FastAPI, Django, or Flask)
• Database experience with PostgreSQL or similar, including schema design and migrations
• Experience integrating with APIs and external services, including authentication flows (OAuth/Azure AD)
• Comfortable working across the full stack- you can debug a CSS layout issue in the morning and optimise a database query in the afternoon
• Experience with version control and CI/CD workflows
• Strong communication skills and ability to work with non-technical stakeholders to understand requirements and explain technical trade-offs
• Ability to ship code quickly and iteratively

Desirable Criteria

• Experience building LLM-powered features: prompt engineering, structured outputs, multi-provider routing, or RAG pipelines
• Familiarity with LLM observability and evaluation tools like Langfuse, LangSmith, or similar
• Cloud and infrastructure experience: Terraform, Azure (App Service, Blob Storage, Container Registry), or equivalent AWS/GCP services
• Experience with speech-to-text or audio processing pipelines
• Entrepreneurial or startup experience- comfortable with ambiguity, fast iteration, and wearing multiple hats
• Up to date on the latest developments in AI and excited to apply them pragmatically
• The opportunity to work on AI products with real-world impact across the justice system
• A collaborative, high-agency environment where engineers have direct input into product direction
• Direct access to users- you'll regularly meet with courts, prisons, and probation staff to understand their needs
• Work at the cutting edge of applied AI in government
• A team that values shipping iteratively, learning from users, and continuous improvement

The Justice AI Unit is part of the Ministry of Justice, building AI tools that make a difference for frontline staff and the people they serve.

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Changing and Improving
• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Experience building solutions like predictive models, LLM workflows, scheduling algorithms, data pipelines etc.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £71,381, Ministry of Justice contributes £20,679 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Access to learning and development
• A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• Annual Leave
• Public Holidays
• Season Ticket Advance

For more information about the recruitment process, benefits and allowances and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.

Link: https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : SSCL Recruitment Enquiries Team
• Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk
• Telephone : 0345 241 5359

Recruitment team

• Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles and would like to raise this, please contact SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com) in the first instance. If the role has been advertised externally (outside of the Civil Service) and you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm…

https://jobs.justice.gov.uk/careers/JobDetail/17144?entityId=17144