Software Engineering Director

Why choose Valpak?

Valpak has created a friendly and supportive working environment that enables our team to perform to the best of their abilities, with flexible hours, hybrid working options, access to training and opportunities to get involved in various groups to nurture key interests.

With social value at the heart of our business ethos, employees can take a day on us to volunteer for an organisation of their choice, and our Charity Committee organises fundraising events for the employee nominated charity of the year.

Valpak endorses wellbeing and healthy lifestyles, offering subsidised gym membership, optional healthy living seminars and social events, encouraging cross team integration. Plus the “After Work” social group organises regular gatherings – an opportunity to get to know friendly faces.

Our team is passionate, friendly, approachable and dedicated to the business mission – to inspire businesses to do all they can to reduce their environmental impact. If you have an interest in sustainability and like the sound of all Valpak offers, we would love to hear from you!

What will I be doing?

Leadership

• Working with the Group, Divisional EVP of Technology & Product, Valpak Exec Team, Programme Manager and Product Managers to develop and execute an ambitious software and business systems roadmap.
• Ownership and responsibility for all software development, both managed in-house and on an outsourced basis at Valpak.  Responsible for implementing and managing a mature software development lifecycle focused on stakeholder engagement, steering, communication, and prioritization to a common divisional standard.  Implementing streams of activity including strategic new developments and monthly maintenance routines across all main software products.
• Ownership and responsibility for the development of the Group’s core business systems including CRM (Dynamics), General Ledger (Dynamics) amongst other critical applications and integrations, aligning to divisional and group standards;
• Responsible to the Valpak CEO and Executive Team for delivery of key “run” and “change” projects, to support day to day business operations.
•  Work with engineering leads to plan and schedule delivery, including resource allocation, timelines, and budgets.  Challenge thinking and identify gaps.
• Identify and mitigate potential risks and issues that may impact delivery, such as resource constraints, technical issues, and changes in requirements.
• Point of contact between the development teams and other stakeholders, including clients, management, and other departments within the SME.  They ensure clear and open communication between all parties involved in the project.
• Working with the board to execute on the Group’s M&A strategy, including supporting initial system linking to longer term integration

Security & Technical Excellence

• Working with the Service Delivery Manager, Group Cyber Security Manager and Group Compliance Officer to maintain and refine the existing ISO 27001 certification and to develop and deliver cyber security strategy on a broader basis.
• Ensure the consistent adoption of modern software best practices, including; SDLC methodology, architecture, coding standards, patterns and DevOps (e.g. logging, tracing, monitoring, security, automated testing, load testing, CI/CD, SOLID, DRY, OWASP), all aligning to divisional and group standards
• Oversee the creation of the divisional architectural design, documentation and templates.  Drive the use of these across the Valpak engineering teams.
• Meet and collaborate regularly with Divisional and Group peers to ensure consistency of approach.
• Ensures that delivery meets quality standards and specifications.  Testing and validation, ensuring the software is user-friendly and meet regulatory and compliance standards.

Delivery

• Oversee the delivery of complex interdependent project streams in-line with legislative deadlines.
• Champion the Scrum methodology within the business.
• Ensure effective project management consistency across the various streams e.g. approaches to backlog prioritisation, sprint planning, and review occur across all delivery streams.

Bridge tech & non-tech gaps

• Understand commercial requirements and customer/regulatory pressure, and be able to translate these into technical requirements.
• Improve business analysis, requirements specification, and collaboration between business departments and technical staff.
• Communicate technical challenges and solutions at the right level of detail with confidence and credibility to non-technical stakeholders at all levels, including C-suite.
• Provide technical teams with the space to deliver while effectively communicating progress to the business stakeholders.

What kind of businesses will I be working with?