Tech Lead

**Description**:
We’re a much-loved brand with an exciting future. Our Islanders are a diverse bunch of bright, talented people who love working together - and are proud of the work they do. Progression here can take you in all kinds of directions.

This is what a career at River Island is like. And this is where yours starts.

A Tech Lead should be aligned to a set of capabilities that are owned by an individual Product Team. There will be a one-to-one relationship between a Tech Lead and a Product Team. This is an inwardly facing role (understanding deeply their Product domain, and the people and skills within the team) and also an outwardly facing role (understanding their stakeholders and Business value, and actively contributing to the greater good of Engineering, Development Practice, RI:Tech and River Island).

This is a position of trust, seniority and leadership so a Tech Lead should be exhibiting behaviours that reflect the values of RI:Tech and conducting themselves in a positive, progressive way. What you do and how you do it has an impact on those around you in the team and the wider community.

Each Product Team will also be aligned to an Engineering Practice Lead/Engineering Manager, usually a Development Practice Lead or Manager that is there to support the team and the Tech Lead.

Key Accountabilities:
As a Tech Lead, you’re holding yourself accountable to the functionality and well-being of not just the codebase, but the Product(s)/Technical Domain itself and its customers along with the user experience offered to those customers.

Establishes the technical goals and is responsible for the technical deliverables for the team through the alignment of the team with the RI Tech and Business Strategy, within the framework of Portfolio LVT, Tech Radar, Engineering and Development Principles.

Accountable for the maintaining and promotion of agile principles aligned to the RI:Tech Values.

Manages the technical risk of the team.

Line Manages the people in the team that belong to the Development Practice.

**What We Are Looking For...**:
Key Responsibilities;
Responsible for the development, design and implementation of new or modified software products or ongoing business projects. Typically sitting within the IT team of a business, a Tech Lead will be involved in liaising with the Business Analysts/Product Owner and Development Managers to ensure software projects meet requirements.
- Line Manages the people in the team that belong to the Development Practice.
- Putting the customer at the heart of everything you do
- Owns and continuously looks to improve the team’s Product(s) -you build it, own it, run it.
- Is responsible for high quality, operable, maintainable, adaptable, compliant, security-conscious and responsive solutions.
- Is fully versed in the team’s backlog -Kanban / Sprint backlog, Product backlog and also the strategic direction of the Product.
- Is able to communicate effectively at all levels and can describe the business value of the work undertaken.
- Coaches, mentors and has an active interest in developing all those in the team
- Actively codes.
- Works closely with the ADM, BA and PO of the team
- Researching, designing, implementing and managing software programs
- Testing and evaluating new programs
- Identifying areas for modification in existing programs and subsequently developing these modifications
- Writing and implementing efficient SOLID code in accordance with best practices
- Determining operational practicality
- Deploying software tools, processes and metrics
- Maintaining and upgrading existing systems
- Working closely with other developers, UX designers, business and systems analysts

**Qualifications & Experience**

**Engineering principles, methodologies and concerns**:

- Self-documenting code using a TDD / BDD approach, that adheres to SOLID principles.
- Experience with distributed systems and CI pipelines a plus.
- SOLID, YAGNI, DRY, KISS
- Functional programming
- Caching strategies
- Performance
- Security and Data Compliance

**Other**
- At least 3 exceptional years of development experience
- HTML, CSS
- JavaScript, inc. ES6, React, Node, Redux
- Typescript
- GraphQL, Apollo
- Jest, React Testing Library, Supertest
- Webpack/Yarn
- JAMStack, AWS, ECS, Lambda, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, API Gateway
- Experience with one or more of the following Commerce Tools, Stripe, Talon.One
- Experience with payment providers

**This Is For You...**:

- Discount - Generous 50% staff discount so you can treat yourself & a bargain staff shop, all onsite
- RI Rewards - Reducing Islanders everyday expenses through discounts, benefits, financial advice, wellbeing solutions and more with Reward Gateway
- Island culture - We have a free onsite gym, subsidised restaurant & café & various social events throughout the year. We also work closely with the Retail Trust to create dedicated support for all our Islanders
- Work that stays at work - Flexible working