Head of Software Engineering - Middleware & Web

Must have:

• Confident 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.
• 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
• Must deeply care about building the best of breed 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 cloud platforms – AWS or Azure
• Comfortable with tools such as Redmine and Jira etc.
• Experience with Source Code Management tools, such as SVN or 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

Desirable:

• Business and industry acumen, knowing mkodo, mkodo’s offerings and products and mkodo’s customers
• Domain or product knowledge of apps, middleware and digital products in the global lottery, betting, and gaming space.
• Experience in managing teams of Software Engineers from third party offshore/nearshore providers, as a supplement to UK based FTE, would be highly advantageous.

• Working as part of a group of global companies, collaborating in an aligned strategic direction, would also be very helpful

• Experience with both Kubernetes and Java based environments
• Experience of leading web development
• Good working knowledge of at least one following:
• Front-End: React Native,
• Backend: Java and Kubernetes

Reporting to the Director of Technology & Engineering, the Head of Engineering - Middleware & Web manages our 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 Management 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.

mkodo has made significant investment in middleware services that support our Apps and Web Products. These products have grown into a range of Value-Added Services that we sell as either complimentary or standalone services to the mkodo portfolio. Examples such a ‘GeoLocs’ which is a rapidly growing standalone product, with its own roadmap.

This is an important role for the company to ensure that we provide outstanding quality products to the customers who use them, at pace & with constant evolution.  The Head of Engineering is accountable for all Software Engineering activity for our rapidly growing middleware products, in house CMS and Web developments, inspiring the team to ensure the high standards we have are consistently met or exceeded.  

• Working with the Director of Technology & Engineering, and the Head of Engineering – Mobile, 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 (focussing 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, 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.
• Drive developers 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.
• 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, Agile Delivery 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, and tooling across teams.
• Define strategy of architecture 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 managing the support queue and allocating tasks to appropriate teams or people.
• 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.
• Help ensure that solutions are scalable, sustainable, architecturally sound, and technical debt is both incurred consciously and repaid in a reasonable amount of time. 
• Ensure all services and middleware adhere to modern secure coding standards  
• Working with IT Operations, facilitate and drive automating repetitive manual processes to improve the overall team efficiency, including the CI and CD deployment processes.

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

• Hybrid/Flexible Working 
• Quarterly team events
• Birthday Holiday
• Extra day off at Christmas
• Generous Holiday Allowance
• Tech Loan Scheme
• Performance bonus & profit share scheme
• Cycle to Work scheme
• 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

mkodo builds world class apps 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.