We have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Software Engineering Manager within our digital hub in London. Do you have the ability to set the technical direction for an engineering function that supp...

Senior Software Engineering Manager | Holborn | Permanent

Whitbread is the UK's leading hospitality company in the FTSE 100 including brands such as Premier Inn and Beefeater. By the end of 2020, our goal is to increase the number of Premier Inn UK rooms to an incredible 85,000. All while creating around 3,000 UK jobs a year and continuing to expand our presence worldwide. There has never been a more exciting time to Whitbread!

We are proud of our tech stack, which depending upon your role, gives our engineers the opportunity to work with Java, Spring, AEM, Kubernetes, AWS, Android (Kotlin), iOS (Swift), ReactJS, Angular JS, Cypress, Docker, Jenkins.

You will be responsible for managing our engineering community and driving technical advancements on the Premier Inn and Restaurants digital sales channels and technology platforms. 

What you will be doing to contribute

• Develop your team to a standard where they are fully competent in tactically managing their respective areas with little or no intervention from you. 
• Drive the areas of the IT strategy that relate to engineering specifically in the areas of greater integration and information exchange with the wider IT functions and greater engineering efficiency and quality through tooling. 
• Influence the IT strategy in the areas of engineering. 
• Manage the relationships with Digital's most senior commercial, operational and technical stakeholders on all things engineering. 
• Look 6-36 months ahead for emerging trends in the engineering sphere and running your own agreed backlog of initiatives cascaded and delivered through your teams supervision. 
• Be a primary influencer within Digital, shaping culture, demonstrating the expected work ethic and radiating energy. 
• Steer software development across Premier Inn & Restaurants portfolio, maturing the software engineering practise to balance pace, agility, governance, tech debt, re-use and reliability 
• Work with direct reports and peers within the digital function to contribute to the strategy, architecture and delivery approach for applications that fully exploit the advantages of the cloud computing model (cloud-native based application)  
• Develop and deploy new strategies for building a high velocity, high performance development organisation in line with our emerging customer needs.  
• Support technical innovation and the creation, continual refinement, and active enforcement of our development standards to ensure that our technology can be leveraged as a sustainable competitive advantage 
• Maintain and improve our current development skill matrix, providing a clear framework for hiring, paying, progressing and promoting engineers 
• Participate in staff recruitment, performance assessments, training, and career development. 
• Responsible for all headcount planning and personnel evolution for multiple areas of the engineering organisation. 
• Manage vendor and external relationships and participate in the budgeting process 
• Provide leadership to direct reports, addresses technical, resource and personnel issues.  
• Create an organisation that understands how to balance technical debt, technical upkeep and commercial and operational goals. 
• Ensure the engineering function has appropriately high technical competence and strives for excellence 
• Guide research into new technologies to stay abreast of industry trends and standards 
• Undertake other duties assigned by the Head of Digital Engineering and Delivery including deputising for the Head of Digital Engineering and Delivery as and when require

Required skills and experience:

• Experience managing software development teams and leaders 
• Able to communicate technical concepts to business stakeholders as well as communicate commercial and operational objectives to the technical team
• Delivered strategic digital outcomes that meaningfully impact organisations 
• Experience working with architects and both internal & external suppliers to understand solutions and solution design 
• Mobile Apps, Web and API delivery experience 
• Proven people leadership and management experience 
• Influencing, communication and facilitation skills

Whitbread is an inclusive employer. We believe that everyone is unique and there should be no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We welcome your application whatever your background or situation. Under-represented groups such as women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities & members of the LGBTQ+ community (those who identify as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, trans sexual, non binary or use another term), are strongly encouraged to build a career with us. We are open to part-time and flexible working and, where possible, will try to support this.