Senior Full Stack Developer - Data & Web Applications (Affirmative Measures)

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (Canberra ACT, Australia) Follow 2 hours ago

About the Group

The Ngurra Cultural Precinct will be nationally significant in speaking to the central place that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples hold in Australia’s story. It will comprise two key elements:

A National Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Centre where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia tells its own stories and celebrates the 65,000-year history of this nation. It will include education, exhibition, and gallery spaces in a new fit-for purpose home for AIATSIS.
A National Resting Place to house and care for repatriated limited provenance ancestral remains and any associated cultural material on their journey back to Country.

About the Program Area

Digital Services sits within the Ngurra Transformation Group. Digital Services has three core teams (Development Services, ICT Operations, ICT Security & Infrastructure, and Information & Data Governance) that work together under the direction of the Chief Information Officer to provide a secure, flexible, and modern ICT capability allowing AIATSIS to take full advantage of digital capabilities whilst providing a stable and mature platform to deliver its day-to-day operations. The section also leads digital transformation initiatives from start to finish for AIATSIS ensuring that the agency excels in providing cutting-edge services to our customers, such as the modernising and transformation of our existing educational platform to constructing secure, transformative digital experiences and galleries.

Role Summary

Reporting to the Development Services Manager, the Full-Stack Developer will play a pivotal role in ensuring the continuity and improvement of existing internal and external facing online platforms as well as being deeply involved in the development and release of new products and applications. As a smaller ICT team, but with the same remit as many other government departments, the role of Full-Stack Developer provides an exciting opportunity for suitably experienced candidates wanting to gain a greater breadth of knowledge, exposure to a wider range of functions in a solution focused digital environment to build their own skills and capability. Our ideal candidate will already have a strong technical background in all facets of web development as you will be involved in developing all layers of software, websites and web applications. You will have significant expertise in the development of visuals and interfaces as well as the development of backend actions on websites or web applications using both standard and non-standard programming languages. You will be a highly experienced communicator capable of working directly with business areas to translate their problems into tangible results. You will be detail oriented and have commitment to delivering high quality solutions for internal and external stakeholders.

The key duties of the position include:

develop and maintain Drupal 10 and Drupal 11 websites, including custom module development and maintenance.
improve and manage websites performance and security and analytics reporting.
ensure all managed platforms / services meet accessibility, usability and user-centred design requirements.
use Agile processes, follow release processes, code review, source control, testing and Quality Assurance processes.
contribute to the assessment, planning and development of secure external and internal facing online platforms.
maintenance of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery pipelines for both local and cloud hosted version control services.
contribute to service desk issue tracking, response and rectification with various support teams.
collaborate with technical specialists (internal and external) and third parties to ensure network and server architecture and configurations meets business requirements and appropriate technical standards.
File system management, reporting, and data integrity analysis.
develop and integrate datasets from multiple platforms.
assist with data / storage remediation works and process development.
maintain and enhance current and future development of Geospatial data and supporting services, across multiple platforms.

Eligibility

Cultural capability - essential

Roles at AIATSIS require candidates to have an understanding of the issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and proven culturally appropriate engagement and communications skills. The nature of this role requires the candidate to consistently demonstrate the following specific cultural capabilities:

understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander business within the agency and the outcomes the agency is responsible for delivering.
engages with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees in a sensitive and equitable manner.
takes the perspective of others, seeking to understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ points of view and experiences.
encourages and draws on different cultural experiences and knowledge.

AIATSIS embodies Yindyamarra in everything we do.

Skills, knowledge and personal attributes

To be successful in the role, you will be a solution focused, dynamic team leader with expertise in solving complex business issues, with well-developed communications skills, including the ability to convey complex issues concisely and the ability to build effective mutually beneficial working relationships. You will be someone who can thrive in a fast-paced technical environment with limited direction. You will come with the following skills, experience and attributes:

tertiary qualifications in ICT and / or significant > 3 years demonstrated practical experience in an ICT environment undertaking the role of a Senior Web Developer / Full-Stack Engineer (Drupal/Node.js/PHP).
model and display the behaviours and capabilities laid out in the APS Integrated Leadership System (ILS) at an EL1 level.
extensive configuration, management and integration experience of services and tooling including, but not limited to:
- Linux (and associated distributions).
- Server container configuration and management.
- Servers/containers configuration in a repeatable Infrastructure as Code approach. Including configuration of services such as:
  - Minio server
  - Ubuntu server
  - Docker swarm
experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines to ensure consistent, fault-tolerant and reproducible deployments.
experience in the use of search indexing methods/services to create rich search platforms (Solr, Elastic search, Meilisearch).
extensive experience in database configuration, deployment, management and integration (Redis, MySQL / MariaDB, PostgreSQL).
extensive experience in frontend frameworks (Vue.js, Twig, Drupal themes).
extensive experience in creating API first backend services (Symphony, NestJS).
experience using ORM database libraries (Prisma, Drizzle, Sequelize etc.).
experience in message queue microservices (BullMQ, RabbitMQ etc.).
strong grasp of using PHP, Nodejs (typescript) and python programming languages.
experience in code preprocessing, compiling, testing.
experience in media file management, format conversion.
basic knowledge and awareness of ICT Infrastructure and Networking.
knowledge and awareness of current Cybersecurity requirements for the Australian government.
significant degree of analytical and critical thinking skills as well as the ability to effectively escalate issues when necessary.
significant demonstrated experience in a customer facing ICT role with exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
experience coaching and developing staff / peers within small to medium sized ICT teams.

Notes

Affirmative Measures positions

Jobs in the APS are open to all Australian citizens. There are some jobs, though, that are open only to specific members of the Australian population. This practice is known as an Affirmative measure and is a targeted strategy to ensure the diversity of the APS workforce reflects the diversity of the Australian population.

Any job can be restricted to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people only, and it doesn't necessarily have to involve working on Indigenous issues. If a position has been advertised as an Affirmative measure, it will be clearly marked as such.

The use of the Indigenous Affirmative Measures provision at AIATSIS allows for targeted recruitment of Indigenous Australians into the organisation. If you are applying for an Affirmative Measures position, you will need to indicate your Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander heritage on our application form and provide confirmation if required.

What is Cultural Capability?

As all positions at AIATSIS are ‘Identified’ each position will have various elements of involvement with the delivery of Indigenous specific services, programs, and policies as part of AIATSIS core functions. AIATSIS therefore needs to also identify the cultural knowledge; skills and personal attributes needed to deliver the required outcomes.

Every part of how we work, who we work with and for, requires varying levels of knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, protocols and an understanding of issues that enable effective communication and ultimately effective performance in the role. To assist you in determining the required cultural capabilities of this role, you can refer to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Capability – A Framework for Commonwealth Agencies.

Applications close 11.30pm Sunday 28 June 2026.

The successful candidate/s will need to undergo:

Police check
6 month probation
Medical clearance

This vacancy is being advertised concurrently under an affirmative measure and identified recruitment process, there is 1 position available.

Getting to know the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

We are Australia’s only national institution focused exclusively on the diverse history, cultures, and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia. We house the world’s most important and extensive collection of cultural information and material and we provide leadership, publish and promote greater understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We create opportunities for people the world over to engage with and be transformed by the knowledge, the culture and the story of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. We are Australia’s national institution for leadership in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. We care for a priceless collection, including films, photographs, video and audio recordings as well as the world’s largest collection of printed and other resource materials for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. We undertake and encourage scholarly, ethical, community-based research in a variety of sectors, including health, native title, languages and education. Our publishing house, Aboriginal Studies Press, regularly publishes outstanding writing that promotes Australian Indigenous cultures. Our activities affirm and raise awareness of the richness and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories.

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