Lead, Technical

SUMMARY:
There are two primary facets to the job of Technical Lead. The first, building the practice, is about acquiring (hiring), training and developing top class software engineers and technical experts. The second, capability building, is about defining, implementing and evolving the set of methods, practices, guidelines and frameworks that are required to continually improve the quality of technical

POSITION INFO:

Output group 1

• Responsible for constructing the Engineering teams

Outputs and measures

• Ensures a common sense of purpose by establishing the vision, intent and desired outcomes of the practice.
• Hires skilled software engineers and top class technical experts (architects, software engineers, operations engineers.)
• Ensures an appropriate supply of technical experts to fill available positions in the delivery portfolios (SAFe Portfolio, Program and Team levels).
• Builds relationships with the team, partners and the broader industry.

Output group 2

• Management of the teams specifically through Performance management and career development

Outputs and measures

• Continually improves his/her own technical acumen and remains closely connected to changes in industry practices.
• Provides support in the form of training, mentoring, coaching, etc. for practice team members to allow them to attain mastery in their craft.
• Provides opportunities for team members to acquire adjacent skills (“T-shaped employees”) and actively drives cross skilling as a strategic initiative.
• Sets measurable goals and objectives and provides explicit guidance w.r.t. performance expectations.
• Measures performance continually (using feedback from a wide variety of sources) and provides honest and objective feedback to team members on a regular basis.
• Sets clear expectations for the achievement of quality goals.
• Encourages autonomy of decision making within clearly defined boundaries.
• Ensures that team members are rewarded fairly within the context of experience, performance and personal contribution.

Output group 3

• Build and improve capability to ensure effectiveness of the software engineering practice against industry
• Outputs and measures *
• Through collaboration with team members, industry, community, subject matter experts, research houses, etc. establishes and continually improves the standards, methods, frameworks, etc. for the “way things are done” i.e., the way solutions are architected, designed, built and operated.
• Ensures that Security forms an integral part of all practice capabilities.
• Works with key stakeholders (e.g., Product managers) to ensure that work required to instantiate practice goals and objectives is properly prioritised and inserted into Portfolio/Program/Team backlogs.
• Has extreme focus on building capability that produces predictable, reliable and sustainable solutions. “Everything under version control” & “Automate all things”.
• Drives a culture of relentless improvement.
• Regularly assesses the effectiveness of the practice against industry leaders.
• Does presentations at industry functions and actively contributes to the industry body of knowledge.
• Encourages the use of rituals and habits that help shape the effectiveness of the practice.
• Creates Guilds (“communities of practice”) to encourage in-and-across-practice collaboration, information sharing

Output group 4

• Oversee technical solutions delivery and management in line with Group IT Centre of Excellence quality and engineering standards and practices
• Outputs and measures
• Support the Lead, Engineer, Release Train Engineers (RTE) and Feature Teams by overseeing / ensuring the quality of the technical solution being delivered and managing solution quality related escalations that may impact delivery
• Accountable for the end-to-end delivery of all engineering in the identified feature teams
• Adherence to the IT COE with communication (in the Program) of clear expectations for the achievement of quality goals and objectives, providing explicit guidance about technical standards and practices
• Listen and support teams in problem identification, root cause analysis, and decision-making by participating in planning, various workshops and system demonstrations during iterations of delivery by being “in the work” and participating in labs, reviews and showcases
• Work with the System Architect/ Lead, Engineer, Product Managers, and Product Owners to establish clear content authority, continuously assist in aligning teams to the system mission and vision i.e. system Future State Architecture strategies, roadmaps as well as System Service Ownership requirements e.g. system dependencies, required service levels etc.
• Provide technical direction to the teams by leading and guiding their output in line with the delivery and business objectives in conjunction with the Lead, Engineer
• Drive continual engineering delivery improvement across all teams in the program
• Works with partners from Group Information Security to ensure that best practice security standards are embedded into all practice capabilities.
• Ensures that practice capability (process, methods, tools,) are compliant with Internal Audit requirements.

Output group 5

Adhere to Agile methodologies and follows Agile principles through work outputs and behaviours

Outputs and measures

• Strive to reach mature levels on the Continuum model by building own and team competence to work in a continuous delivery environment: Champion team learning and adopt suitable methodologies and practices.
• Collaborate with colleagues from different disciplines in a cross-functional team to deliver against iteration targets.
• Work in partnership with Business representatives (e.g. Product Owner, Product Manager) ensuring alignment and value to the customer.
• Manage work effectively as an individual and team member including the reprioritisation of backlogs and reacts flexibly to changing demands.
• Manage work using available resources and methodologies ensuring full team engagement.
• Estimate the size and complexity of the work within the team and managing this appropriately.
• Determine the technical design in their area of concern, within the architectural guidelines.
• Drive team commitments to the work in every iteration or Program Increment.
• Be responsible for value and builds to continuously improve the quality of deliverables.
• Find ways to improve flow and teams’ delivery, removing blockers and ensuring value to the customer on a continuous basis.

Output group 6

• Scope, Plan, Design and Review end to end solutions

Outputs and measures

• Render advice, maintain and implement the organisations system development standards, methods and procedures.
• Assist in the assessment and selection of suitable software packages and technologies to meet all or parts of specified requirements.
• Engage with Information Technology support teams and business stakeholders to scope plan and design end to end solutions.
• Formulate strategic plans which will have long term cost savings.
• Advise development staff on the evaluation and impact analysis of major design options.

Output group 7

• Co-ordinate and participate in the delivery of application code

Outputs and measures

• Produce outline system specifications using solution designs, functional specifications or technical specifications as input, including input into scope, constraints (such as performance or resources), hardware, network and software environments.
• Lead a team of developers in own or outside of own team to deliver on agreed solution.
• Produce specifications for systems functions, information flows, data loads, implementation strategy, phasing of development, requirements not met and alternatives considered.
• Produce component designs taking into account the solution design, performance requirements and existing systems.
• Review input into risk analysis and development plans in order to consider the impact of design decisions.
• Design and review user and system interfaces including menus, screen dialogues, inputs, reports, validation and error correction, processing rules, access, security, audit controls, recovery routines and contingency procedures.
• Work with data analysis colleagues to review, approve, produce or update system or object data models and correlate these with corporate models, when required.
• Review, approve and update or work with database design or database administration teams to translate object and data models into appropriate database schemas within design constraints.
• Assist less experienced colleagues with complex coding problems, where appropriate.
• Conduct quality assurance and approve developed code linked to supplied specifications for production deployment.
• Provide guidance to colleagues on any aspect of program component design, creation, testing and documentation.
• Ensure that applications are built in line with continuous delivery/ continuous integration standards

Qualifications

• Degree : IT and Computer Sciences
• Other qualifications, certifications or professional memberships
• Agile Software development methodologies and associated practices such as Continuous Integration, Continuous delivery, Software Defined Infrastructure as code, Evolutionary Architecture, Domain specific certification etc.
• Preferred other qualifications, certifications or professional memberships
• IT Certifications eg. SAFe, Scrum Master

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