Engineering Team Leader I

Engineering Team Leader
Location - Harrogate
THE ROLE
Reporting to an Engineering Manager, this is an Engineering Team Lead role where both technical and domain expertise is required. You will lead a team, usually 3 to 5 people, for which you will have line management responsibility. You will be expected to directly contribute to the technical approaches and development of software features that deliver value to our customers.

You will work in a structured environment that encourages creativity and innovation, and is inspired by thought leading best practices such as Lean, Kanban and Scrum. You will influence strategies and approaches to the design and writing of unit and system tests. You will make contributions to standards and guidelines that ensure solid and robust applications.

As the team's lead you will be the line manager to your fellow team members, which will include ensuring they have the support they need to be successful in their roles.

You will take responsibility for the team's key goals including resolution of internal and customer defects that are allocated to the team through a process agreed with the Engineering Manager. And to take responsibility for understanding and driving towards agreed release delivery goals, escalating issues to the Engineering Manager, when necessary.

The largest part of this role is helping the team achieve its goals by solving technical problems, agreeing technical approaches, writing code including unit and integration tests. Ensuring the due Engineering process is followed.

This role is a hybrid role with the expectation of being in the office at least two days a week. There may be a need for occasional offsite meetings or visits. This job may require some flexibility in working hours in order to support and liaise with the Company's other locations, and development partners.

What You Will Do In This Role

• To take responsibility for the Engineering goals of the team
• To drive the team towards speedy resolution of defects allocated to the team
• To understand and drive towards agreed release objectives, escalating issues when necessary
• To develop Software to the standard of a Senior Software Engineer
• Support less knowledgeable members of the team
• Encourage sharing of constructive feedback amongst the team as part of reviews and retrospectives, involving team members from other functional areas, e.g., Product Managers, UX, Technical Writers, etc as necessary
• Drive the Performance Feedback loop - have regular 1-2-1's with the team members, delivering recognition and feedback, discussing development opportunities and support needs, and taking on board suggestions for improvements
• Career progression discussions - setting objectives and timescales for achievement to help with progression to new roles and levels
• Identifying and utilizing coaching and mentoring opportunities with members of the team to aid their knowledge and progression
• Participate in the hiring process, including interviewing, devising and delivering technical tests, and being involved in the decision making process leading to employment offers
• Identify and recommend training needs for team members
• Participate in Employee Success processes, as well as providing input into processes such as promotions, etc.

What You Need To Be Successful In This Role

• Requires e.g. 5+ years experience in software development with Object Oriented languages in a business environment along with a Bachelor's degree; or 3 years and a Master's degree or PhD.
• Expert competency with enterprise software tooling and methodologies like distributed version control systems, and continuous integration and testing.
• Strong knowledge and applied expertise of quality practices.
• Good working knowledge and experience of LEAN principles and continuous improvement cycles
• Passed relevant professional advanced-level external certifications in the practice and/or applicable technologies.

Additional Skills/Competences

• Strong technical knowledge and applied competence
• Strong knowledge of applicable functional domain
• Previous experience of managing people, or shows the competencies required
• Methodical and organised; able to manage multiple opportunities, projects and priorities concurrently
• Excellent problem solving skills
• Able to foster a culture of cross team collaboration
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, and interpersonal communication skills
• Desire to develop coaching and mentoring skills
• Able to operate effectively where there is ambiguity
• Previous experience in dealing with and resolving conflict within teams is advantageous
• Excellent organisational skills