Head of Engineering

Role: Head of Engineering

Location: London/Newcastle – Hybrid

Who Are We?

mkodo builds world class apps, middleware and digital products in the global lottery, betting, and gaming space.

We have an open, supportive, dynamic culture where talented people are trusted to contribute to the team and company by carrying out their roles in a professional, collaborative, and skilled manner. We value the expertise of our team members and offer opportunities for personal development and career progression within the company.

Acquired in February 2020, by Pollard Banknote Limited (PBL), a major supplier to the global lottery industries, brought mkodo strong financial security, access to resources and clients at a global level.

About the role:

Reporting to the Director of Technology & Engineering, the Head of Engineering manages Mobile, Middleware/Product and Web Software Engineering teams, as well as being part of the Technology & Engineering Leadership Team, and a member of the wider mkodo Senior Leadership Team.

An enthusiastic & diligent role model, the Head of Engineering provides strong leadership and a vision to drive teams to a higher level of quality software product output, at pace. Within this role, the Head of Engineering will provide leadership, supporting and challenging the Software Engineering teams to be their best selves, whilst developing talent through career progression.

The Head of Engineering will be responsible for driving the technology architecture of mkodo forward, leveraging the Senior & Principal Engineers, and Solutions Architect, to define and push the overall technology direction and compliance of the company.

They will also provide thought leadership within the business, supporting and, where possible, initiating the technical innovation within the company. This is an important role for the company to ensure that we provide outstanding quality mobile apps and products to the customers who use them & with constant evolution. The Head of Engineering is accountable for all Software Engineering activity in their areas which can include Mobile Applications, our rapidly growing middleware products (such as GeoLocs), in house CMS and Web developments, inspiring the team to ensure the technical excellence & delivery velocities we have are consistently met or exceeded.

Main responsibilities are:

• Working with the Director of Technology & Engineering, and other Heads of Engineering, to create and maintain the strategy that will be rolled out and inspire the engineering team to act on an energised vision of quality software delivered at pace with frequent releases (focusing on software engineering but not excluding the influence you have with other disciplines).
• Lead and direct a team of Software Engineers providing coaching, mentoring and support to drive the capability of the team (technical & architectural, as well as people focus), ensuring appropriate training and continuous development is in place to support growth and succession planning of individuals.
• Ensure the elements of projects & plans delivered by this team are within agreed budget, on time and to agreed scope.
• Ensure that Development estimates (HLE and LLE) are as accurate as possible, without over padding or analysis paralysis.
• Drive Engineers and testers to understand client needs early in the SDLC and maintain engagement throughout (in whatever way is appropriate for each client or product).
• Be accountable for the full development lifecycle to ensure the output is of the highest quality before sign-off to clients, and foster a culture where the teams know they are also accountable to deliver against agreed plans, at pace.
• Partnering with the other members of the Technology & Engineering Leadership Team; develop a cross-functional team relationship that sets the bar for your direct reports. As part of this, ensure that you have full visibility of the conversations with the Project Managers, Engineering Managers and Product Owners about roadmaps, the resource plans for the teams and regularly check that workload and capacity are matched.
• Deliver cost effective solutions to business requirements including continual review of contracts & services.
• Create and manage an effective resource model usage, with a mix of permanent UK mkodo people, and offshore/nearshore resources, in addition to using shared services within the PBL group where applicable.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement: Using retrospective data, project metrics, bug escape metrics and regular operational catch ups across the business, gather actionable data, track trends, and analyse data to demonstrate continuous improvement to process, approaches, technology and tooling across teams.
• Define the strategy of software architecture, and Engineering as a whole, and collaborate with technical leads and Pollard teams on Target State decisions.
• Manage the cause of reported client issues by identifying and feeding back in a professional manner, whilst ensuring the Engineering teams deal with Tier 3 support tickets/fixes, based on priority, allocating tasks to appropriate teams or people if there is any ambiguity when they come in.
• Support & create business cases for new Middleware Products and Services.
• Hire and appropriately resource the team, in conjunction with the HR and recruitment teams.
• Inspire engineers by providing new ideas and concepts and ensure a team ethos of trust and accountability flourishes.
• Lead a high performing engineering function via a leadership team of Engineering Managers & Principal Engineers, providing them with clear direction & alignment, whilst also trusting them & empowering them to lead their own teams consistently.
• Working with IT Operations, facilitate and drive automating repetitive manual processes to improve the overall team efficiency, including the CI and CD deployment processes.
• As a member of the Information Security Forum (ISF) this role will also ensure that the Engineering team adhere to all relevant mkodo ISO27001 Information Security Management System (ISMS) policies, procedures and requirements.

Key Skills & Attributes:

• Confident, technically astute leader with a strong coaching, mentoring, appreciation, and feedback ethos who can build/maintain high performing teams, communities and manage internal and external relationships.
• Experience of managing the daily flow of Agile software development across multiple teams – including complex problem solving, resource planning, adapting quickly to change, raising risk and mitigations, working with conviction, and working to tight deadlines.
• Extensive experience in managing and mentoring teams of Software Engineers in a fast-paced Agile environment (Scrum, Kanban etc.).
• Significant first-hand experience as Head of Software Engineering/Head of Product Development or similar role.
• Have a significant history of building high quality, secure & scalable software products.
• A ‘secure base’ for the team in any challenging situations, providing strength, encouragement, interest, challenge, insight, support, and direction; good at cutting through complexity; figuring out the processes necessary to get things done with people on board.
• Clear communicator who can inspire others through a multitude of mediums, be passionate, provide context, create a story and then deliver on it through teams.
• Resilient, calm, and methodical in high pressure situations and able to multi-task, prioritise and make decisions.
• Experience working within certified IT Security compliance frameworks such as ISO27001, PCI etc.
• Ability to go beyond the basic requirements of a specification to put yourself in the users’ shoes.
• Excellent communication skills, along with analytical and problem-solving skills
• A strong technical background, with a significant amount of experience of leading technical teams.
• Whilst this role does not require coding you will be expected to know what a good technical team looks like and to hold them to account for their technical deliverables.
• Must deeply care about building the best of breed apps and services.
• Here at mkodo we strive to build award winning apps and services and expect you to share the same mentality.
• Experience of leading delivery on mobile apps or cloud platforms – AWS or Azure
• Comfortable with tools such as Jira, Confluence etc.
• Experience with Source Code Management tools, such as Git.
• Experience of continuous delivery, integration etc.
• Significant experience in client facing situations.
• Proficient in creating management reports for senior stakeholders, highlighting risks and mitigations.
• Although a hybrid role, regular office attendance is required, to the contracted office at least twice a week and additionally travel to our alternate office, and to client locations as required. Depending on location you will based from either our London or Newcastle offices.

Benefits:

mkodo is a great place to work, with excellent benefits comprising:

• Hybrid/Flexible Working
• Quarterly team events
• Birthday Holiday
• Christmas Day-Off
• Generous Holiday Allowance
• Tech Loan Scheme
• Performance bonus & profit share scheme
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Life insurance and income protection
• Travel Loan scheme
• Supplies of fresh fruits, cereals, biscuits, nibbles, etc. in the offices
• Relevant training and training budget.
• Digital Nomad Policy
• Generous refer a friend scheme

We encourage growth and progression because we value our colleagues and know that we best succeed when achieving and developing together.

If this is the opportunity you have been waiting for, to work in a fast-paced company with innovative products and cutting-edge technology, please apply now.