Head of Engineering
- 📁
- Engineering
- 📅
- May 11, 2020 Post Date
- 📅
- 1900001R Requisition #
The Head of Engineering role is a key senior member of the Digital Data & Technology (DDaT) directorate of UKRI Corporate services reporting directly to the CTO. The Head of Engineering leads the teams responsible for building, delivering and iterating a range services used by UKRI in pursuit of their organisational goals. DDaT is a key enabler of a major transformation programme within UKRI where 9 councils are transforming to represent one large organisation responsible for driving research and innovation across the UK economy.
This role has three key high-level responsibilities: -
- Establishing and building the engineering teams and enduring capability within DD&T
- Leading the engineering function in a range of service and project deliveries working closely with other functions both within and outside of DD&T
- Inspiring best practice and setting standards for engineering and service development within the wider organisation.
The role will work closely with the other senior members of the DD&T team such as the Heads of Architecture, Digital, Data and Live Operations to establish the required technology standards that enable delivery across UKRI. Members of your team will often work collaboratively in multi-disciplinary agile scrum teams to develop outstanding software that exceeds stakeholder expectations.
You should be familiar both with agile methods and enterprise IT delivery and you will be involved in all elements of development, working with the Head of Digital Services and others to ensure a relentless focus on how services will be used. Your teams will be involved in in all aspects of the technical delivery lifecycle including software architecture, code development, test, maintenance and support. The aim is to build a flexible, skilled development capability with a love of technology to realise our business objectives.
You will report to the CTO, taking responsibility for leading and managing the technical streams; namely development, development operations, release/deployment, quality assurance and solution architecture. You will assign your team members to work on digital and other technology services ensuring commonality and sharing of best practice.
Key Areas of Accountability
- Build teams of technical expertise to deliver support and maintain digital and other technology services for UKRI
- Lead your team to create and maintain services, including UI build, development, data models, APIs, DevOps and functional/non-functional testing
- Be responsible for the creation and implementation of relevant technology standards to support the work your team performs
- Be accountable for current and future application development services across UKRI
- Work closely with product managers and other business areas to plan and deliver technology, data and security for the line of business
- Work closely with the architecture team to set and ensure compliance and alignment with technology standards and code of practice
- Work closely with security and enterprise infrastructure teams to ensure highly resilient, secure and available systems
- Lead a team of front-end and back-end developers, analysts, DevOps, testers, some of which may include digital business partners and vendor teams
- Contribute to design, development & deployment planning and strategy
- Lead development & code review activities
- Mentor and coach your team members, sharing best practice
- Act as the subject matter expert on tooling decisions and their procurement
- Participate as a member of the Technical Design Authority to represent the engineering function
- Contribute to release planning & impact analysis
- Establish a strategic sourcing model for core capabilities within the engineering function.
What is UK Research and Innovation?
Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £6 billion, UK Research and Innovation is a new entity that brings together nine partners to create an independent organisation with a strong voice for research and innovation, and a vision to ensure the UK maintains its world-leading position in research and innovation. UKRI will build on the successful elements from the current funding system and maximise the contribution of each of the component parts to create the best environment for research and innovation to flourish.
Building on success
The UK has a world class research and innovation system. Our expertise spans all fields of knowledge, from the discovery of penicillin and monoclonal antibodies, to the jet engine and the world-wide web. Our inspirational creative industries are strong in art, design and the innovative use of new materials and technologies. Our universities and laboratories produce a disproportionate percentage of the world’s top research, and their academics are highly-sought as international colleagues and co-authors and are among the world’s best at attracting overseas students Nor is this excellence confined to university campuses and research centres. Our engineering, automotive and pharmaceutical industries are successful in part because of the superb graduates they can hire and the top rate researchers that support them.
Our partners
The nine UK Research and Innovation partners each bring unique assets to this cooperation. Innovate UK helps businesses to identify the commercial potential in new technologies and turn them into the new products and services that will drive economic growth and increase productivity; Strong discipline-facing Research Councils encourage breadth and diversity, curiosity-driven research, and priority-driven initiatives; Research England’s work on knowledge exchange will focus on capacity and culture in universities and provide balance to the funding system. It will drive quality and impact through the REF and work closely with its counterparts in the devolved administrations.