The Vacancy
What will your role look like?
We’re looking for an experienced Software Development Manager to play a leading role in shaping and delivering our digital services. Your primary objective will be to build, manage and lead highly effective, cohesive, multi-disciplinary teams of digital technology professionals and domain experts.
This role is as much about people and outcomes as it is about technology. You’ll focus on developing and maintaining high-quality digital services in line with firm strategy, whilst ensuring we truly understand what our clients need and expect — and that our technology solutions directly enable effective client outcomes.
Working closely with colleagues and stakeholders across the firm, you’ll reflect the strategic importance of digital services to our wider goals, helping to connect technology, business needs and client impact in a meaningful way.
Though this is a varied role, your key tasks will include:
1. Establishing, managing and leading high-performing, multi-disciplinary digital development teams, ensuring consistently high standards of quality, efficiency, reliability, timeliness and cost effectiveness.
2. Creating and nurturing a strong culture of continuous improvement, supported by the effective use of metrics.
3. Supporting Delivery Leads and team members to implement well-considered development approaches, with clear estimation of work and transparent articulation of trade-offs and uncertainty.
4. Supporting teams to proactively identify and manage delivery risks.
5. Keeping abreast of relevant industry research and trends and ensuring beneficial new approaches are adopted across teams.
6. Driving the adoption of AI techniques and tooling across teams to improve productivity and time to value.
7. Ensuring space in development planning for strong architecture and design, supported by appropriate design artefacts.
8. Co-ordinating with colleagues to prioritise and plan resourcing across teams and markets.
9. Building strong relationships with Service Innovation Leads, Proposition Owners and Heads of Digital Strategy.
10. Enhancing digital acumen across the firm, ensuring solutions address real client and business needs.
11. Enabling accurate reporting of development costs and Total Cost of Ownership.
12. Influencing prioritisation and investment decisions, particularly regarding technical debt.
13. Developing strong working relationships with IT Infrastructure, NetSec and TPA Systems Development teams.
14. Engaging with vendors, service providers and consultants to enhance delivery capability.
15. Supporting the firm’s profile as a digital technology leader externally.
16. Taking responsibility for operational and people-related initiatives and processes.
To enjoy and succeed in this role, you will have:
17. A proven track record of leading software development teams at a similar level of responsibility.
18. Strong experience embedding a continuous improvement culture with demonstrable results.
19. Extensive knowledge of Agile, Lean and Kanban methodologies.
20. Strong understanding of DevOps culture and practices, including DORA metrics.
21. Experience leading teams to adopt AI within the SDLC to improve time to value.
22. Experience managing strategic product or service development with senior stakeholders.
23. Strong people management capability, including performance and career development.
24. The ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to business stakeholders.
25. Experience coordinating complex delivery involving multiple stakeholders and disciplines.
26. Flexibility and resilience in a fast-moving, evolving environment.
27. Desirable: a strong technical background in software engineering, experience in financial or professional services, knowledge of Microsoft development technologies, and strong understanding of web standards.
Please note that as part of the recruitment process for this opportunity, candidates will be asked to deliver a short presentation.
We would also encourage applications from candidates who perhaps do not possess all the attributes and experience listed above but are competent with the majority and would be able to quickly develop the additional skills and experience required in post with our full support. We would also love to hear about other knowledge and experience you may have that is not listed but could be of interest.
In addition to a competitive salary and access to our profit share scheme, we offer:
28. A flexible selection of employee benefits, so you can choose a package that best matches your lifestyle and needs.
29. A collaborative and encouraging work environment where your thinking and ideas are encouraged.
30. On site mental health and wellbeing assistance.
31. A commitment to helping you develop both personally and professionally, with mentoring opportunities and access to our award-winning learning portal, Aspire.
32. Regular social activities, in addition to three days paid volunteering leave each year and a day’s leave to celebrate your birthday.
33. Hybrid working so you can enjoy the positive wellbeing of working from home as well as the benefits of meeting colleagues in our sociable, modern office environments – with the expectation of two ‘in-office’ days per week.
34. A flexible working window, allowing colleagues the freedom to work flexibly between the hours of 7am and 7pm.
Please note that we recruit on a rolling basis so early applications are recommended to avoid disappointment.