Head of Software Development

The organisation I am representing's development team is growing; they are looking for a highly skilled and experienced Head of Development to lead front-end and back-end development teams. This role is pivotal in driving the technical execution of their product roadmap, working closely with the Head of Product and Head of Operations to ensure timely and high-quality delivery.

As the Head of Development, you will provide technical leadership, manage development processes, and implement Agile best practices. You will be responsible for defining and optimizing development workflows, test management, and automation strategies and application security while ensuring project delivery within budget.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: Oversee the front-end and back-end teams, ensuring best practices, design specifications, high-quality coding standards, and scalable architecture.
• Ensuring adherence to code quality standards
• Agile Development & Process Optimization:
  
  • Champion Agile best practices, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
  • Lead sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives.
  • Implement and manage Agile tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps for tracking development progress.
• Strategy & Roadmap Execution: Collaborate with the Head of Product and Head of Operations to define and execute the product roadmap.
• Architecture & Design: Lead architectural decisions, ensuring scalability, security, and performance.
• Team Management & Development: Build, mentor, and manage a high-performing engineering team, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.
• Testing & Quality Assurance:
  
  • Define and implement test management processes to ensure reliable and high-quality software.
  • Lead the adoption of test automation frameworks for unit, integration, and end-to-end testing.
  • Work with QA engineers and developers to integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines.
• CI/CD & DevOps: Implement and optimize CI/CD pipelines to enable faster and more reliable deployments.
• Security & Compliance: Ensure that all development and testing practices align with industry security standards and regulatory requirements.

Key Requirements

• Extensive software development experience working ideally with the following technologies: React.js, Node.js, Azure.
• Deep understanding of designing scalable, high-performance systems, including microservices, cloud-native architectures and distributed systems.
• An ability to provide broad and detailed technical development support.
• A track record on collaborating with a variety of stakeholders.
• Proven background in successfully leading teams and delivering complex software products at scale.

• Proven experience in a leadership role managing front-end and back-end teams.
• Experience working with cloud-based environments, preferably Azure.
• Expertise in Agile methodologies and Agile tools such as Jira
• Experience leading Agile teams and working in an iterative development environment.
• Familiarity with microservices architecture and DevOps best practices.
• Experience with test management and test automation tools (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Jest etc.).
• Hands-on experience integrating automated testing in CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong problem-solving and stakeholder management skills.

NODE.JS exp is non-negotiable: