Software Development Manager

What you’ll do

The Software Development Manager will be responsible for heading up a number of our product teams.

Our suite of products helps our customers manage their venue operations more efficiently. Effective booking and reservation through management allows our customers to gain greater control not only over where to seat people, but also ensuring staffing and stock procurement forecasting is accurate.

You and your teams will operate with a large degree of autonomy, with choices about process and technology stack. You will be responsible for ensuring your teams remain aligned with the overall technology and product strategies and processes striking the right balance between consistency and flexibility.

You will be responsible for enabling the success of your products, which includes both the operations of the product (uptime, performance, and user experience) and the successful delivery of the product roadmaps (features).

It will be your responsibility to co-ordinate the cycle, release, and sprint planning activities of your teams in co-ordination with the Product Management teams. You will be responsible for ensuring the teams are effectively delivering against plans through an effective and structured monitoring and reporting framework.

You will keep a strategic view of the demands on, and limitations to, the products and use this to constantly improve the operations of the product.

Responsibilities will involve:-

• Through your teams continually deliver products, or projects, using the appropriate agile project management methodology
• It will be your responsibility to ensure the team performs to its optimum capability while maintaining good practice and achieving a high level of quality and low team turnover. You will own the continual improvement plan for the team.
• Lead the collaborative, dynamic planning process across all your teams – prioritising the work that needs to be done against the capacity and capability of the team within each Planning Cycle. This will include both technical and non-technical backlogs.
• Continually report on progress of planning cycles using appropriate Agile KPIs such as Release Burndown charts, Cumulative Flow and Lead Time analysis feeding this information into continual improvement plans for the team.
• Manage dependencies both within and across domain areas of our Product Suite where requirements being implemented “cross boundaries” between individual product areas.
• Ensure Architects and Tech Leads effectively shape requirements to the right level to enable the team to be clear on and architectural and technical considerations.
• Facilitate the inclusion of wider Zonal stakeholder requirements into the technical backlogs with your teams, for example Zonal Security and Zonal Technical Services.
• You will enable and foster a culture of innovation and professionalism within the team where there is clear ownership and accountability, and where individuals take pride in their deliverables and creating a positive customer impact.

As a Line Manager you will recruit, develop, coach, motivate and performance manage those in your team especially with regards pragmatic and effective implementation of Agile Methodologies.

• We would like you to actively participate in the Product Delivery community, sharing and re-applying skills and knowledge and bringing in best practice.
• You will work with your teams and the Product Management function to help define the sprint roadmaps ensuring that delivery timescales are achievable, realistic, and commercially viable.
• Ensure your teams can provide the necessary support, in and out of hours, to our customers. Drive improvements in this support.
• You will be expected build a technology function where teams and products are loosely coupled but tightly aligned: We don’t want tight dependencies between products as that makes delivery more complicated, but we do need all products improving the overall solution and heading in the same direction
• Given your expertise we will ask you to ensure a balance between consistency and flexibility: teams need freedom when it comes to process and technology choices, but when appropriate it must be consistent between teams.

Who you are

You will have a background working in a software Product Delivery environment, most likely you will have spent some of career as a contributing member of a delivery team. You will have experience of managing and leading groups of people successfully to deliver on defined outcomes.

We want you and your leadership skills on-board; you’ll be the go-to person to help get things done.

It goes without saying you will have an in-depth and thorough understanding of agile principles and techniques.

• As a natural, confident, and clear communicator you will have experience liaising with technical and non-technical teams and across organisational boundaries.
• You will bring exception organisational skills to bear along with previous experience of line managing to deliver through others.
• You will be experienced in communicating with support staff, delivery team members and C-Level executives and know how to tailor your communications to the audience.
• You will be motivated by getting things done, and getting them done in the right way, first time; you are laser focussed on achieving the best outcome.

As a valued Manager within the business, we would like you to be aware of the business and commercial pressures relevant to your teams.

Your dynamic leadership skills will pragmatically balance delivery against the pressure. You realise that we don’t always operate in a perfect world and it will be necessary for you to make difficult decisions from time to time.

• You will have experience of rapid business changes and be able to keep your team motivated, energised and on track through these periods.
• Using your communication skills, you will keep key stakeholders aware of progress against plans and help mitigate risks. You will understand that the identification of risks and issues is not enough – when escalating you will provide recommendations and solutions.
• Being accountable for delivery of multiple projects and those factors which make delivery successful or unsuccessful, you will use this knowledge to ensure positive outcome and build a track record of delivering software releases on time and within budget
• Ability to work closely with other key functions which may include Product Management, Infrastructure teams, DevOps team to enable delivery.
• Have a proven track record of successful delivery through agile development teams and a clear understanding of Agile principles and techniques

What we value

Imagine what it would be like to work at the UK’s leading tech developer to the country’s biggest and best pubs and restaurants? From EPoS to loyalty, CRM to table bookings, stock control, recipe management and BI Reporting giving business critical insights – our tech includes everything an operator needs to run their hospitality business. Our customer obsession shapes our product roadmap. We bring passion for our customers and dedication to innovation to the everyday.

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Smart, inspiring, forward-thinking people who thrive on building solutions for complex problems. We are very much a family company not just in name. Zonal people work together and look out for each other. Trusted to be accountable, you’ll find that everyone around you shares a passion for delivering value to our customers and striving to always do better. We provide a flexible working environment with a culture to help everyone achieve their best.​