Head of Development

OVERVIEW

This job description details what we would expect of you as a Head of Development and
employee of Great State.

You will report into the Technical Director and work closely with department heads and other
Senior stakeholders across the agency to help optimise operational efficiency, levels of quality
and creative and innovate use of technologies within the engineering department and agency.

You should be passionate about technology and building effective engineering teams, have a
logical and pragmatic mindset, outstanding communication skills and excellent industry
knowledge and commercial awareness.

You are required to be a self-driven individual who can organise your time effectively,
encourage a collaborative environment, demonstrate a flexible but methodical approach and
provide direction, support and guidance to other members of the engineering team.

TECHNOLOGY EXPERIENCE

From a technology point of view, we expect you to have a broad range of experience with
many different platforms, services and technologies. However, we need you to be up to date
with the following:

• C#, .NET
• Azure/AWS
• HTML, CSS (latest versions)
• JavaScript/TypeScript
• React
• Modern infrastructure architecture patterns (including on-premise, hybrid and cloud)
• Modern application architecture patterns
• Enterprise software development
• Experience of using DXPS / CMSs (e.g. Umbraco, Sitecore)
• Experience developing web applications
• Software security/privacy and data compliance best practices
• Performance optimisation and testing techniques
• Experience of working to Agile and Waterfall project delivery methodologies
• Understanding of standing of SEO and accessibility

RESPONSIBILITIES

Your responsibilities as Head of Development are to:

• Build and support a high performing and positive engineering team
• Keep up to date with latest engineering and industry trends and technologies
• Encourage the team to think creatively about how they approach the work
• Optimise the development process to maximise quality and efficiency
• Ensure projects adhere to standards and industry best practice
• Line management of 4 Senior members of the engineering team, including regular 121’s,
development plans, objectives setting and annual appraisals
• Maintain a broad and extensive knowledge of software engineering practices,
processes and technologies
• Support the New Business and Marketing department with pitches, thought leadership
through blog/news content and ideally be comfortable presenting in webinars and/or
in-person events.
• Build and maintain relationships with the key technical contacts with clients.
• Provide technical consultancy to our clients and define suitable technical strategies nd
roadmaps to help them achieve their ambitions
• Work closely with the Technical Director to help shape the future technical strategy,
service offerings and direction of the engineering department within Great State.

ATTRIBUTES

The core attributes we are looking for are:

• Supportive, collaborative and open – always ensuring the engineering team feels
supported and always valued
• Outstanding leadership qualities – someone who the engineering team and agency
respect and look up to.
• Excellent communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences
• Attention to detail - ensuring the levels of quality expected are achieved or
exceeded in everything you deliver, and your team delivers.
• To be an outstanding problem solver
• To have an enthusiastic and positive approach
• To have the desire, ability and willingness to pick up new skills and knowledge,
seeking out the latest tools and techniques and evaluating them
• To be proactive and show initiative
• To have an excellent commercial awareness of industry trends, best practices and
standards, and ability to distinguish which best apply to Great State.
• To share knowledge with your colleagues
• To be able to adapt at the pace of an agency where trends in software platforms
and approaches can quickly change

DIVERSITY STATEMENT  

“Building diversity into our team isn’t just important to us as people, it is business critical.   

We design digital products and services for a diverse world, and so we want a diverse team who enable us to produce the best work for our clients.  We don’t just celebrate differences; we want a team that is built upon them. 

A team that represents all sexual orientations, ethnicities, faiths, and gender expressions. Every person is welcome at Great State and we offer the appropriate support throughout anyone’s journey with us.   

Equally if you have a disability or a special need that requires accommodation or our attention, then we want you on our team, and we actively encourage you to apply.