Head of Software Engineering

Job Description

Scottish Enterprise (SE) is Scotland’s main economic development agency. We help Scottish businesses to grow nationally and internationally, to become more efficient and innovative, and to access the funds they need to develop. We also attract overseas companies to invest in Scotland.

We're implementing an ambitious programme that will see us deliver more services digitally, make it easier for customers to do business with us and create more economic impact.

The difference you’ll make

We have a fantastic opportunity for head of software engineering to be an integral member of the Customer Operations Leadership Team that drives the design, development and assurance of new online services.

You'll be setting the overall technical architecture strategy with a multi skilled service design and software development team, and continuously improving software engineering best practices across the organisation.

You'll be expected to have a ‘hands-on’ leadership style demonstrating what 'good' looks like to the software engineering team.

Our digital transformation programme is very ambitious and we're looking for someone who wants to make a difference to the Scottish economy, and shares our passion, experience and aspiration to make things happen.

The qualities you’ll bring

We’re looking for a leader with extensive experience delivering business IT solutions — from the analysis and planning stages, architecture design, through to successful delivery and operational support. A leader who knows how to get the best out of a mixed disciplined software engineering team, establishing continuous, incremental delivery of a constantly working set of online services.

You’ll have expert knowledge across the Microsoft .NET stack and Azure Cloud platforms, and spend at least 60% of your time ‘hands-on’, setting a high standard for the rest of the software engineering team. You write high quality code snippets, help to debug code, and ensure testing (Automation/TDD/BDD) and pipeline practices enable best in class CI/CD approaches.

Your ability to cope with issues calmly and professionally will make you an inspiring leader for your team.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll work across a mixed discipline team of product owners, service designers, user experience designers, developers, testers and DevOps engineers to bring new digital services to life for our customers.

You’ll spend most of your time ‘hands-on’ with the software engineering team, and the rest of your time setting and leading the development of the architectural strategy. You’ll be a great listener and coach for your team and know when to help your colleagues overcome challenges they face and inspire them to greater levels.

You’ll recruit colleagues who are exceptionally talented and fit the culture of Scottish Enterprise. You’ll ensure your team possesses and develops the right skills by understanding the requirements and roadmap of the products we are building.