Head of Software Development

We are looking for someone to provide technical leadership and management of the development teams responsible for NWEH’s software products. To provide input and insight into technical and product strategy, and to ensure the successful delivery of software.

As Head of Software Development, you will ensure the development teams work effectively and efficiently in a supportive and collaborative environment. You will be accountable for the on-time delivery of software product milestones to agreed scope. You will work with the team to confirm secure and compliant development practices are in use and keep the team’s practices and processes up to date with relevant best practices, tools, and methods.

Responsibilities:

Managerial - directly manage a team of 4-8 people. Make sure team members have appropriate workloads, and that knowledge is effectively shared across the team and business. Foster a culture of continual improvement with ongoing personal development; work with team members with regular 1-to-1s to identify training and progression opportunities. Identify areas for team growth, and work with the People Team and CTO to recruit new team members via job descriptions, short listing, interviewing and induction. Maintain a good culture within the team and beyond, ensuring that a positive attitude, fairness and recognition are promoted whilst protecting the team from burnout and undue stress.

Technical - provide the team with high-level technical guidance, using your business-wide perspective to ensure decisions made consider the needs of the business, the client, and risk appetite. Draw on experience to mentor and guide the team. Make direct contributions through pull-requests and code reviews. Lead in the management of technical debt and continually appraise and identify technical risks. Provide estimations for larger pieces of work, and ensure appropriate tools, technology, and processes are in place. Work with the team to guarantee the capture of key information through diagrams and notes that are up-to-date and readily available.

Operational - work with other Heads of Teams across the business to ensure the united and effective operational running of NWEH. Work with the Business Delivery Team to successfully deliver projects. Support the Quality Team through technical audits and the development of and adherence to effective process. Work closely with the IT & Data team to ensure smooth DevOps practices and continual improvement of our cyber security posture. Track team metrics and progress against objectives. Ensure business messages are effectively communicated to the development teams, and thoughts/issues from the team are fed back.

Strategic - provide input and guidance to Product Managers, CTO, and other senior management and contribute to the development of effective and achievable technical and product road maps. Identify technical risks and support in the management of these risks.

Person Specification:

Essential:

You will hold a degree in a relevant subject with at least 5 years spent working in the software development industry, with at least 3 years’ experience leading technical teams and line management.

Demonstrable experience of current web programming concepts and technologies (ideally .NET, C#, and Angular) is required for this role, and familiarity with cloud technologies (preferably Azure). You will also have experience of agile and waterfall methodologies, and the use of Scrum and Kanban.

You will have a track record of successful line management covering mentoring, motivating, objective setting, training, and performance management. With this you will have experience of recruiting, writing job descriptions, short listing, and interviewing.

You must have demonstrable experience of delivering technical work within time and budget constraints, and excellent understanding of the software development lifecycle, particularly the full release process and associated risks and challenges.

You will be a leader that is solution orientated, diplomatic, empathic, with a commitment to deliver. A passion for technology and innovation is a given, with the ability to make decisions and collaborate effectively across your team.

Desirable:

It would be attractive if you also possess knowledge of Atlassian tools JIRA and Confluence with some experience of Jira configuration. An understanding of DevOps and the associated benefits, along with an understanding of clinical trials, GCP and GxP would also be advantageous.

In addition, experience of hands-on software testing and requirements analysis would be helpful.