Job Description
Salary: £59,313 - £64,776
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Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time, 36 hours
Annual leave: 29 days
Location: Hybrid working or remote
About the Role
Our Digital & IT service is at the start of building an in-house capability for software development. This role is an exciting opportunity for someone to come and build that capability, from its beginnings through to development.
As the Head of Software Development, you will be working on projects across every aspect of the council such as digital, housing, planning, adult social care and our customer services team to name a few. You will design and lead the integration of the in-house software helping us move to the cloud, this work will be varied, impactful and rewarding!
You will also be managing up to 10 members of staff and reporting to the Head of Digital Delivery.
To support you in this role, you will be provided with a Chromebook. We are a modern organisation and we understand that life can sometimes get in the way, so with that in mind, we also offer flexible working.
The role is a hybrid working role with the expectation to come into the office when needed or join in on team days once a quarter! However, fully remote options for this role can be considered.
About Us
We're the Digital team for Kingston and Sutton councils. We are committed to delivering excellent public services to our residents and local businesses, which is why we place the user, and their needs, at the heart of our agile delivery strategy. We are proud of our digital culture, and have a team of excellent professionals working across multi-disciplinary teams to deliver new digital services.
We're growing our digital team to support transformation work in every service area of the councils. We're looking for people who can:
- help us put users at the centre of our services;
- investigate and design more effective ways of delivering our services;
- introduce new technologies and speed up our pace of delivery; or
- use data from our systems and sensors to inform our services.
About You
We're looking for a candidate who is able to build and write complex services in code and have significant experience in this area. You would hold a relevant qualification (for instance in computer science or software engineering) or have equivalent experience.
It is necessary that you have previous experience in managing and/or coaching other developers.
Other essential skills to have for this role are as follows:
- Experience leading software development teams.
- Significant experience working in teams using agile methods and culture.
- Significant experience in understanding and balancing client, organisational, and technical needs and knowing how to balance these when setting product strategy and direction.
- Significant experience researching, prototyping, launching and scaling products and platforms from inception to live.
- Ability to build software to the highest standard, in a range of languages and frameworks.
- Ability to test software in modern ways, including automated testing.
- Knowledge of DevOps practice and culture and associated practices like continuous deployment and testing, test-driven development and pair programming.
For more in-depth information about the role, please refer to the job description.
Our Offer To You
As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we're committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We're constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.
In addition we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff supported by our IT infrastructure, Google Chromebooks and Google Apps, which have acted as a key enabler for collaborative and streamlined working. The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to be even more flexible in how we work and manage staff workloads, ensuring they have the correct equipment and resources to be able to maximise their talents and looking after their wellbeing.
Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:
- Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
- Three volunteering days per year
- Flexible and agile working arrangements
- Comprehensive learning and development programme
- Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
- Interest free season ticket loans
- Local Government Pension Scheme
- Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
- Zip car scheme
- Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
- Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
- Subsidised gym membership