Head of Engineering at Suretree Systems

Overview

• To lead and manage a team of software developers, supporting them in building industry-leading, search engine optimised, robust and innovative software solutions that are fit for purpose.
• To develop a strategy for the team to meet the company’s goals and objectives, and to improve the quality of the service it delivers internally and externally. To plan and monitor the successful implementation of this strategy.
• Responsible for the quality and technical approach taken by team members, ensuring it is in-line with the company strategy - and that projects are delivered on time and on budget.
• Creating and maintaining a professional culture within the team, where individuals take ownership and are fastidious and proud of delivering excellence and quality.
• To position Suretree as an authority on SEO focused web development.

Duties & Responsibilities

Team Leadership, Strategy & Planning:

• To lead and manage a team of senior software developers and software developers. Line management responsibilities will include technical recruitment, appraisals, one-to-one meetings, identifying training needs, motivating and performance managing the team.
• To drive the strategic direction of our products & services, whilst considering emerging and legacy technologies.
• To strategically decide whether we can inherit existing /support legacy code bases - and how we handle our growing levels of software support.
• To devise a tactical plan which can be collaboratively carried out by the team – to implement improvements to our products, services, processes and knowledge sharing within the team.
• To plan for team growth considering the blend/level of skills required within the team.
• To assist in resourcing decisions
• To review project progress and overview of the performance of all individuals in team
• Coaching and performance management where necessary.
• To facilitate the smooth delivery of all projects, enhancements and support delivered by the team.
• To make sure that all team members have the latest in-depth knowledge of all onsite and relevant offsite aspects at the heart of all decisions on projects or enhancements that they make.
• To facilitate technology and methodology decision making throughout team, including standardisation of system architecture, reusable code base development, versions of software tools, best practice, source control and deployment processes
• To have a clear task list and plan for inducting new members into the team and bring them up-to-speed as quickly as possible.
• To make sure that all training and support that team members require is delivered internally or externally.

Software Development:

• To keep up to date with the latest software development technologies and methodologies
• To drive consistent standards and approaches throughout the team
• To write clean and healthy structured, well documented code
• To build future-proof reusable core code libraries, which can be shared, in-order to drive further efficiencies throughout the team.
• To deliver code which is well tested and consistently error free.
• To design and build database schemas with integrity and scalability with data access layers that are optimised for performance and security.
• To maintain our USP of having SEO as one of our core differentiators.

Technical Support:

• To lead and oversee all technical quotes, analysis, specifications to make sure they are complete and accurate.
• To support the business development team with pre-sale activities, contributing to RFPs where appropriate and assisting in large pitches to potential clients where required.
• To oversee the technical strategy and implementation of our own internal development stream activities – to make sure they apply to the same standards that we would expect for client work.
• To provide training and workshops for clients and/or staff as required

Company Best Practice:

• To stay aware of latest data protection and security threats and to make sure we mitigate against these risks against known industry standards.
• To make sure that the company is aware of these issues.
• To efficiently manage your workload and accurately record your time using the company timesheet system and to make sure your team does so as well.
• To ensure your knowledge of the software development and search engine marketing industry is kept up to date and relevant by networking/researching/reading blogs and news sources.
• To speak/contribute to public industry events and forums as required.
• To freely share knowledge, insight, best practice, and ideas
• To actively contribute to the nairaCompare blog

Innovation, Research & Development:

• To proactively drive innovation with new ideas and options made available by new technologies.
• To maintain and actively contribute to a list of innovation & research projects.
• To assist by offering strategic and technical advice for anyone working on these projects
• Implementing and monitoring ongoing strategies to enable us to deliver quality and excellence through robust testing education and policies that are balanced and appropriate to the scope of project being delivered.
• To foster a focus on excellence across the development team

Education/Knowledge, Skills, Attributes, Experience & Other Requirements

• B.Sc. or equivalent.
• 8+ years’ experience in programming primarily around C#, ASP.NET (NET 4.0+), HTML, CSS, JavaScript (and JavaScript frameworks).
• A minimum of 5 years of Project Management experience.
• A senior level software developer with strong and successful technical lead experience
• Experience of leading a team of developers.
• A high level of SEO experience, specifically onsite optimisation, but also a full and broad knowledge of effective SEO strategies and techniques
• DevOps experience such as creating configuration, build, and test scripts for Continuous Integration environments.
• Advanced level (knowledge and experience) of programming languages and methodologies
• Advanced level of understanding of HTML5 and CSS3 as well as previous iterations of these languages
• Experience of managing, directing and motivating staff to deliver projects with stretching scope and objectives.
• Highly numerate and literate, with the ability to produce top quality written specifications and strategy and implementation communication.
• Excellent working knowledge of major social media channels including Facebook and Twitter.
• Proactive and highly organised, with strong time management and planning skills
• Able to meet tight deadlines and remain calm under pressure.
• Experience at advising key stakeholders at senior and board level.
• Strong Communication and presentation skills.
• Requires knowledge of business processes Engineering and business management.
• Experience managing large scale IT projects.