Engineering Practice Lead

Team Context

Our Technology team here in Belfast has expanded rapidly during the last 18 months; in addition to our Pega and Mobile Engineering Teams, we have built teams that are delivering solutions using the latest Cloud Data, Cognitive Engineering, DevOps and Web platforms. Our engineering teams are working on disruptive solutions to solve complex problems faced by the insurance industry. The teams will deliver in different product areas, e.g. Proposal generation, Claims, Customer Service, Agent sales & service, and they will all deliver intelligent solutions using DevOps practices, Cloud technologies and modern platforms.

We currently operate three Engineering Practices: Web & Mobile, Cloud Data, and Pega. Our Engineering Practice Leads work collaboratively with our cross-functional leaders for QA, Agile and Product to set the strategic vision and roadmap for our product delivery teams.

Role Context

As we evolve the company from “start-up” to “grow-up”, we are looking to bolster our leadership capability with an Engineering Practice Lead who will be charged with leading the strategic growth of one of our Engineering Practices. You’ll report into the Head of Technology in Northern Ireland, helping to drive forward our strategy to be at the forefront of new technology for [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal], and deliver slick, intuitive, digital solutions for our customers in their time of need.

You will be self-motivated, eager to learn new technologies and values the importance of developing people to become fantastic engineers and great team players. You will play a key leadership role for our Agile teams, helping to translate the needs of the business into technical deliverables. You won’t be afraid to get into the detail sitting alongside our engineers to collaborate on solving complex problems. We will provide you with extensive opportunities to learn and grow, and want you to bring creativity, ingenuity, experience, and insight into software product development, data analytics, and innovation strategies. In other organisations this role might be called a Director of Engineering or Engineering Manager, but we’re not like other organisations.

What you'll be doing

• Setting the strategic direction and leading the delivery for one of our Agile software engineering practices, working in collaboration with our cross-functional leads to provide technical guidance and architectural direction to the Engineering Practice.
• Owning the resourcing strategy for 3 to 5 Agile teams to ensure the teams are right sized to deliver across the product areas
• Take on people leader responsibilities for Engineering Coaches, Engineers and Solutions Architects within the Engineering Practice.
• Staying current with new technologies and selecting innovative platforms to enhance the capabilities of the business; this includes learning the technologies, integrating them within the company, and training our teams to ensure their continued adaptability.
• Collaborating on the technical design for new and existing digital products, and partnering with Product Owners and Solution Architects to ensure that those products are built to meet customer needs using feasible and scalable technical solutions.
• Partnering with US stakeholders, presenting a compelling vision of the strategy, and being able to successfully influence without authority
• Solving highly complex problems alongside fellow team members, taking an alternative approach to produce uncommon solutions that may not have been considered before.
• Implementing automation through a robust Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery model
• Ensuring that testing is at the front of the design & development process, and that QA is embedded throughout the work undertaken by Agile teams.
• Being a servant-leader, without ego or prejudice, who encourages ideas, feedback, and challenge from everyone regardless of level or experience.

Skills and experience

Below is an overview of the skills and experience we are looking for, but remember, don’t rule yourself out if you don’t have everything on the list – it’s your intellect and your attitude we’re really after.

Skills - what makes you unique?

• Be an evangelist of engineering best practice and high-quality software development principles
• An innovative thought leader who can create and communicate a vision that others will be inspired by, and will want to shift all obstacles to bring that vision to reality
• A synergiser – someone who can spot the opportunity to make 2 + 2 = 5
• Have a passion for coaching and mentoring talent, empowering individuals to think differently in how they approach and solve problems
• Be open and honest - someone who works collaboratively to freely share knowledge and experience
• Be effective at making great decisions and delivering fantastic outcomes in line with Product and Business strategy
• You’ll have exceptional communication and interpersonal skills; able to hold one own’s in a strategy discussion with the key business stakeholders as well as capable of technical deep-dives in design reviews

Experience - what you've been doing

Essential

• 10+ years as lead engineer, architect, product or delivery lead using a range of technologies and tools
• 10+ years of IT experience with n-tier, database and client server design/development
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, manage multiple priorities, deadlines, requirements, and decisions
• Highly established in managing experienced engineers, along with a demonstrated track record of growing and building high-performing teams.
• Proven track record of delivery using a variety of coding techniques and languages
• Knowledge and experience of DevOps as part of Agile software development as well as a good understanding and extensive experience of Agile Methodologies
• You’ll ideally hold a Bachelors or Masters degree, preferably in a Computer Science, Engineering, or STEM subject. Comparable commercial experience may also be considered

Desirable

• Experience working with US companies, building relationships with senior leaders in other locations and driving change from a remote location
• Proven commercial experience with some of the following technologies: C#, Java, JavaScript (Node, React, etc), Xamarin, Ionic, Python, Ruby, Pega / other BPM technologies, SQL, Oracle, Ab Initio, AWS Cloud Data Ecosystem, other Big Data technologies (HDFS, Hive, Spark, Kafka, Elastic, etc)
• Familiarity with supporting tools & technologies: TFS, Azure DevOps, Eclipse, BitBucket, Jenkins, TeamCity, Kibana, OpenGrok, Selenium, Docker, Containers
• Experience of delivering Agile solutions for customers/clients located in different time zones

About [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] are a Fortune 500 company, and the largest supplier of supplemental health insurance in the US and Japan. Our insurance helps policyholders when they have an accident or illness, and when they come to us they are in one of their greatest times of need.

For this reason, it is critically important we have world-class technology solutions so our customer can focus on getting better. An innovative tech company based in Belfast, [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] will help create new digital products and enhance our cyber security capabilities.

While the work we do is of great importance, we don't take ourselves too seriously. We are fast-paced and hardworking, but maintain a welcoming and approachable culture. We like to have a good time and are not afraid to be imaginative and try new things.

We get it you probably never saw yourself working for an insurance firm. Safe to say none of us grew up dreaming of that either. However, once you see the impact our technology has on people's lives, and the opportunity for innovative solutions you'll see why we love it here.

We offer highly competitive pay and benefits, and support a variety of career development opportunities. Our goal is to make [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] one of the most adaptable IT and cyber security teams/organisations in the world.