Software Engineering Manager – Store Ops

Why Digital & Tech at M&S?

We're changing the way we do things, and putting industry leading innovation at the heart of how we operate; we need a stellar engineering team to make it happen. You'll be joining one of the most iconic brands in the UK on its most exciting cycle yet. We're more integrated and product led in our tech teams than ever before: learning, changing, and adapting constantly, with millions of people benefiting from your work every single day.

What’s in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that – becoming a part and playing your part. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and always evolving business built on core values.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special…

• 20% Colleague discount on most things from furniture, fashion and food.
• A first-class welcome to M&S with a tailored induction and a wide range of training schemes to help with your learning and development. Having options to progress is something we’re proud of at M&S.
• Attractive annual bonus, based on company performance and personal objectives.
• Competitive holiday entitlement!
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices website. Including GymSave – that offers up to 25% off Gym Memberships and the option to become an M&S Shareholder using our ShareSave & ShareBuy Schemes
• Charity Volunteer Day – A paid day away from work to support your chosen charity.
• A very generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance
• Every colleague at M&S has access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support – this includes access to our 24/7 Virtual GP, PAM Assist to support you & your family as well as many other schemes

What You'll Do

You will be joining the M&S Store Operations team as a Software Engineering Manager. Our mission is to build the systems that support our in-store colleagues across the whole of M&S. As an Engineering Manager you will need to build a strong understanding of how technology is used by our colleagues and will be responsible for providing simple and effective solutions to improve their efficiency.

The team consists of around 20 engineers provided by a partner company and so the ideal candidate will have experience of working with vendors and off-shore teams.

• Being accountable for engineering excellence within your teams, from behaviours to operations, from technical direction to solution in production and from skills and growth to reputation.
• Cultivating self-management and accountability throughout the team via leadership, clear sense of purpose and thoughtful talent management.
• Lead alignment with the overarching technical strategy and working with the wider Technology organisation to craft it.
• Act as a platform owner, apply accurate product thinking to what is being built with a view to enable and empower as much as possible the digital product(s) that it supports through data and customer centricity, driving the related partner management.
• Collaborate with the entire engineering leadership, to make us think strategically, to ensure maximum alignment and to maintain a healthy ability to “think big” within their teams.
• Line management of supporting Staff and Senior Engineers, as well as driving recruitment and retention within the team.
• Act as custodian of OKR’s within your hub.
• Supports our engineering communities to drive bar raising and strategic alignment, by creating the space and time within teams for the agenda of these communities to be progressed efficiently.
• When vendors are involved, the SDM is positioned as the key technical partner. They own it as a vital part of their platform with the same level of reliability and satisfaction as the in-house capabilities they build and run.

Who You Are

• Previous polyglot hands-on senior software engineer
• Extensive background in software engineering with several years’ experience in a variety of systems and technologies
• Experience building and leading teams of highly skilled, senior software engineers that deliver high-quality software.
• Excellent understanding of system design, software architecture, cloud, and software engineering standard methodologies,
• Promoter of DevOps: you build it, you run it.
• Strong understanding of testing strategies and reliability engineering
• Excellent people management, interpersonal, analytical, and problem-solving skills
• Ability to lead and line manage senior engineers and technical partners to a desired outcome, without prescribing it.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and spoken and able to adjust for different, including non-technical audiences.
• A servant-leadership mentality that is willing to take ownership of problems.
• Able to influence people at senior levels and from the highly technical to non-technical

Our Tech Stack

• MS SQL Server
• Java
• Angular
• Android or Kotlin
• Gherkin

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