Head of Software Development - Quote API

What’s in it for you

We’re all about the little helps. That’s why we give our wonderful colleagues bags of benefits. Including wellbeing services, an award-winning pension scheme and much, much more, our colleague reward package keeps on giving. And helps make every day a little better for you and your family. These include but are not limited to:

• Annual bonus scheme of up to 45% of base salary
• Car allowance of £7,320 per annum
• Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus Bank holidays)
• Buy holiday salary sacrifice scheme (for salaried roles)
• Private medical insurance
• Retirement savings plan - save between 6% - 10% and Tesco will contribute 1.5 times this amount
• Life Assurance - 5 x contractual pay
• 26 weeks maternity and adoption leave (after 1 years’ service) at full pay, followed by 13 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay, we also offer 4 weeks fully paid paternity leave
• The right to request flexible working from your first day with us
• Free 24/7 virtual GP service, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for you and your family, free access to a range of experts to support your mental wellbeing
• A Colleague Clubcard for you & a family member (after 3 months of service), giving you access to lots of discounts in-store & online
• Access to our colleague networks providing a space for colleagues to come together from a range of backgrounds. For more information about our colleague networks please click here

Click Here to read more about the full range of benefits we have available for our colleagues

About the role

Quote API is a critical strategic API within Tesco, powering all tills, online shopping and apps across the UK and ultimately all of the countries in which Tesco operates. It handles tens of thousands of requests per second in the cloud, which can be encouraged to increase significantly into the future!

Our Quote API plays a crucial role in our customer's shopping experience and is an HTTP service that is responsible for pricing a customer’s basket, which involves applying prices, pro motions and taxes. Promotion covers everything from simple price cuts to multibuys, colleague discount, earning Clubcard points and much more. An invoice is published for each completed customer transaction, which drives finance, restocking of stores etc.

Our Heads of Software Development at Tesco Technology, are responsible for the engineering team that builds, runs and supports Quote API, and of course for the engineering qualities of the product itself. You are also encouraged to supply more widely across Tesco Technology as a senior engineering leader!

You will be responsible for

• Depth of professional software engineering experience and standard methodologies across the full software development process.
• Awareness of current technology standards, industry trends and emerging technologies.
• Hands on expertise in many disparate technologies, typically ranging from front-end user interfaces through to back-end systems and all points in between
• Strong background in distributed systems working at scale
• Knowledge and experience of cloud technologies, (preferably AWS or Azure) and modern programming languages (Java 8+)
• Experience with both SQL/NoSQL databases
• Experience using Spring.
• Depth of professional software engineering experience and standard methodologies for the full software development process, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations
• Proven track record in leading and evolving teams of software engineers through the full agile product development lifecycle whilst improving their capability.
• Ability to handle multiple and contending priorities within a fast-paced environment
• Experience of running and supporting software in production with appropriate use of metrics to judge service health.
• Understanding of working in a matrix organization and owning all operational metrics and support
• Experience in payment and retail systems would be a bonus but isn’t crucial

You will need

• Depth of professional software engineering experience and best practices across the full software development process.
• Awareness of current technology standards, industry trends and emerging technologies.
• Hands on expertise in many disparate technologies, typically ranging from front-end user interfaces through to back-end systems and all points in between
• Strong background in secure, reliable distributed systems at scale.
• Knowledge and experience of cloud technologies, (preferably AWS or Azure) and modern programming languages (Java 8+ )
• Experience with both SQL/NoSQL databases
• Experience using Spring.
• Experience with data stores (both relational and non-relational); service-oriented architectures and knowledge of best practice in secure systems construction
• Consistent track record in leading and evolving teams of software engineers through the full agile product development lifecycle whilst improving their capability.
• Ability to handle multiple and contending priorities within a fast-paced environment
• Experience of running and supporting software in production with appropriate use of metrics to judge service health.
• Understanding of collaboration in a matrix organization
• Experience in payment and retail systems would be a bonus but isn’t essential

Skills relevant to this job:

• Great at hiring and growing talent as well as experience leading teams (15+) of developers, ideally across multi-location sites
• Validated leadership skills and team development capabilities
• High propensity to problem solving
• We are building systems to solve real world problems at scale, with impact for tens of millions of people
• Collaborative and self-motivated in approach
• Good eye for business and highly tuned judgment
• Ability to influence and persuade others with excellent communication skills and analytical ability
• Methodical, organised and committed in approach with a shown resiliency to cope with high pressure situations (e.g. release cycles)

#LI-BL2

#LI-Hybrid

About us

Our vision at Tesco is to become every customer's favourite way to shop, whether they are at home or out on the move. Our core purpose is ‘Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day’. Serving means more than a transactional relationship with our customers. It means acting as a responsible and sustainable business for all stakeholders, for the communities we are part of and for the planet.

We are proud to have an inclusive culture at Tesco where everyone truly feels able to be themselves. At Tesco, we not only celebrate diversity, but recognise the value and opportunity it brings. We're committed to creating a workplace where differences are valued, and make sure that all colleagues are given the same opportunities. We’re proud to have been accredited Disability Confident Leader and we’re committed to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. For further information on the accessibility support we can offer, please click here.

We’re a big business and we can offer a range of diverse full-time & part-time working patterns across our many business areas, which means that we can find something that works for you.  We work in a more blended pattern - combining office and remote working.  Our offices will continue to be where we connect, collaborate and innovate.  If you are applying internally, please speak to the Hiring Manager about how this can work for you - Everyone is welcome at Tesco.