Lead Software Engineer

Date Posted: 18/11/2024

Location: Reigate

Job Type: Full time

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Lead Software Engineer - Finance & Group

Full Time

London or Reigate - Hybrid

Who are Just?

We’re a FTSE 250 Financial Services company who specialise in retirement solutions and right now, our world is moving pretty quickly. With the defined benefit buy in / buy out space growing each year, Just continues to annually grow its business by over £4bn of assets.

We are a purpose driven company with compelling and credible goals. Quite simply, we help people achieve a better later life. We achieve this by providing competitive and innovative products, services, financial advice and guidance to help our customers achieve security, certainty and provide them with peace of mind in retirement.

That’s who we are. We’re a company on a mission: to become a beacon for the entire retirement industry. Because we believe everyone deserves a fair, secure, and fulfilling retirement.

Purpose

We are currently recruiting for a Lead Software Engineer to join Just's Finance & Group area collaborating closely with the Actuarial team on core system integration &optimisations.

• To lead the build, configuration, validation and maintenance of internally developed/configured applications & products within a Value Stream construct.

• To proactively collaborate within a Value Stream pipeline team identifying high-level technical change Epics that provide intended business value, are cost/time pressure considerate and are technically fit for purpose.

• To translate high-level technical change Epics into Features suitable for delivery by Software Engineering teams ensuring security, performance, availability, maintainability and roadmap progression aspects are incorporated.

• To provide technical influence and thought leadership driving maturity in CI/CD/DevSecOps, test automation and technical standards. To champion technical excellence, best practice and continuous improvement within Software Engineering teams. To provide practice expertise and technical mentoring & coaching.

• To support Software Engineering Managers in departmental governance/audit activity, capability management/improvement and running of technical training, workshops and events.

Job Role Accountabilities

Core planning & delivery activity

• Work within the Group Value Stream to define implementation options for technical change (at and above the Epic level) and translate technical change Epics into Features for Engineering teams incorporating security, performance, availability, supportability (including upgrades), maintainability and roadmap progression aspects.

• Work with the actuarial development teams and product owners to manage and define the project backlog.

• Work closely with key actuarial stakeholders

• Lead and drive refinement of technical Features with the Software Engineering team (supporting with creation/refinement of their Stories where necessary). Provide peer-review and sign-off for completed Features ensuring delivery is in accordance with ‘Definitions of Done’ and ‘Conditions of Acceptance’. Ensure delivery of technical Features is within governance and infosec/risk requirements and complies with relevant architectural, security and Engineering standards.

• Lead the technical planning and coordination of complex production releases/deployments. Support Software Engineering Managers with root cause analysis and identify continual improvement opportunities in production release capability and reliability.

• Support the Engineering team with technical problem solving, incident resolution and technical thought leadership as required to support progression of day-to-day Engineering team activity.

Technical standards and practice leadership

• Evolve and shape, with peers, the Engineering standards, principles, practices and roadmaps to reflect changes in technologies and engineering community trends. Encourage, mentor and coach Engineering Team members (individually or as a group) to develop their skills and practices.

• Maintain and refine technical debt backlogs ensuring entries are a fair reflection of current state. Identify technical debt reduction opportunities and implement through Feature definition as part of regular delivery or collaborate with Software Engineering Managers and Value Stream stakeholders to roadmap resolution of common debt themes.

• Manage catalogue of software library & tooling dependencies utilised within Engineering and influence, with peers, approval/selection mechanisms. Drive a move towards keeping dependencies up-to-date and increasing harmonised tooling and re-use through influencing/coaching as well as through Feature definition as part of regular delivery.

• Support Software Engineering Managers in assessing standards and practices maturity in teams and communicating/educating teams on the current standards and practices. Support use of metrics to track improvements and to continually enhance the software engineering process within teams. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver shared goals and continuous improvements.

• Work with the Solutions Enablement team to define the Terraform that defines the F&G landing zone. Ensure that infrastructure as code best practices are followed.

• Support Software Engineering Mangers to foster innovation within teams and introduce new ways of working by embracing, role modelling and driving a DevSecOps/CALMS model culture within teams.

• Use technical mentoring & coaching techniques to enable the Software Engineering team to gain technical confidence and competence lifting team capability and self-sufficiency over time.

Technical and operational documentation

• Ensure that technical documentation is up-to-date, accurate and sufficiently detailed. Support Software Engineering Managers to ensure operational documentation (e.g. support matrix, skills matrix and formal processes) are up-to-date, accurate and sufficiently detailed.

Maintain competence

• Maintain your own technical leadership competence and personal development.

• Participating in Value Stream ‘pipeline team’ activity and Agile ceremonies to shape/refine Epics.

• Deriving Features from Epics (that require Engineering delivery) and leading refinement sessions with the Engineering team. Participating in Engineering team Agile ceremonies such as stand-ups, refinement and planning.

• Identifying and implementing performance improvements to the Cloud actuarial modelling platform in collaboration with the engineering and Cloud Ops teams.

• Peer reviewing and signing off completed Features. Collaborating with the Engineering team on achieving Feature ‘Definition of Done’ and ‘Condition of Acceptance’.

• Representing, influencing and driving technical delivery excellence aspects in stakeholder meetings (such as team meetings,  peer-to-peer groups, communities of practice, 1:1 meetings)

• Collaborating with Software Engineering Managers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters and Value Stream Stakeholders to maximise efficiency, productivity and quality of delivery.

• Mentoring, coaching, leading and collaborating with Engineering teams to maximise overall quality, alignment to roadmaps and alignment to engineering standards and best practice.

• Supporting other Lead Software Engineers as a community of practice.

• Supporting the Software Engineering Manager in refining and embedding Engineering roadmaps within the Engineering team and supporting governance and risk tasks.

• Facilitating and encouraging cross-team activities such as communities of practice, hackathons, ‘lunch & learns’ and internal training.

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