- Company Name
- Crown Commercial Service
- Job Title
- Head of Software Engineering
- Job Description
-
**Job Title:** Head of Software Engineering
**Role Summary:**
Lead the engineering organization to deliver secure, scalable, API‑first digital services for the department. Shape technical vision, enforce standards, modernise legacy systems, build a high‑performance engineering culture, and ensure compliance with Government Digital Service (GDS) standards.
**Expectations:**
- Champion long‑term technology strategy aligned with cloud‑first, open‑standard government policies.
- Drive full lifecycle of product delivery: from architecture to “run” operations, adopting CI/CD, SRE, TDD and secure coding.
- Build and nurture a talented engineering community, establishing career paths, coaching, and professional development.
- Report and communicate technical priorities, risks and investment needs to senior government stakeholders in clear non‑technical terms.
**Key Responsibilities:**
1. **Technical Leadership & Strategy**
- Co‑define architecture, standards and roadmap with Architecture, Delivery, Testing and Product leads.
- Own engineering quality: enforce clean code, TDD, CI/CD, SRE practices.
- Lead modernisation of legacy portals and systems, managing technical debt and migration to cloud‑native, API‑first estate.
- Ensure all software meets GDS Service Standard, Government Service Manual, and Digital Service Assessments (Alpha, Beta, Live).
2. **People & Capability Leadership**
- Act as “Head of Profession” for software engineering; shape culture of continuous learning, psychological safety and collaboration.
- Lead recruitment, retention, career development and define “Definition of Done” across multidisciplinary teams.
- Coach Lead Developers and Senior Engineers, facilitating transition to strategic technical leaders.
- Manage permanent staff and blend civil service and third‑party resources, ensuring knowledge transfer and sustainable in‑house capability.
3. **Delivery, Governance & Stakeholder Management**
- Partner with Delivery Managers and Product Managers to align capacity with departmental roadmap (Now‑Next‑Later).
- Conduct technical assessments, peer reviews, WCAG 2.2 accessibility checks, and performance benchmarks.
- Oversee transition from “Build” to “Run,” promoting DevOps and SRE mindsets for 24/7 availability.
- Represent engineering to senior internal and cross‑government stakeholders, translating technical debt and strategic decisions to business terms.
**Required Skills:**
- Proven senior engineering leadership (Head of Engineering, Lead Developer, or Architect).
- Extensive experience building large‑scale, distributed systems (Java, Python, Go, or similar modern languages).
- In‑depth knowledge of cloud‑native architecture, API‑first design, CI/CD pipelines, TDD, SRE, and secure coding practices (OWASP).
- Strong stakeholder communication, ability to explain technical concepts to non‑technical audiences.
- People‑management skills with talent development and coaching experience.
- Familiarity with government digital standards, GDS Service Standard, Digital Service Assessments, WCAG 2.2, and open‑standards principles.
**Required Education & Certifications:**
- Bachelor’s (or higher) degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field.
- Professional certifications such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect, or equivalent cloud‑native, DevOps, or security credentials preferred.
Liverpool, United kingdom
On site
19-02-2026