Head of Software Engineering - Store Payments & Infrastructure

Marks & Spencer Plc; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

A historic retail brand in the UK is looking for a Head of Engineering to drive their technology transformation and software engineering excellence. In this role, you will lead a team of managers, optimize software processes, and implement a robust technical strategy. You'll be collaborating with product and delivery teams to deliver exceptional solutions while fostering a high-quality engineering culture. Competitive benefits are included, offering a rewarding career in a digital-first environment.

Benefits

20% colleague discount

Competitive holiday allowance

Discretionary performance bonuses

Strong pension and life assurance

Tailored induction and training

Market-leading family policies

24/7 wellbeing support

One paid volunteer day annually

Qualifications

• Hands-on senior software engineer experience.
• Extensive background in various systems and technologies.
• Track record in leading and hiring at product group level.

Responsibilities

• Lead Software Engineering Managers to build high-quality software.
• Champion engineering best practices in the team.
• Develop Engineering Managers and maintain effective relations with counterparts.

Skills

Polyglot software engineering

TechOps/DevOps

Infrastructure knowledge

Cloud best practices

System Design

Software Architecture

Tools

Azure

Mule

Kafka

GitHub Actions

Dynatrace

Job description

As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you’ll be joining a well-loved historic brand, working on solutions that serves millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues! With ethical values that run right through the company’s core and technology leaders that truly understand software engineers and engineering, it’s an exciting time as we’re redefining ourselves into a digital first and engineering-led organisation, with the quality of our engineering team being a key differentiator.

We are seeking a passionate Head of Engineering who will provide technical expertise, ship thoughtfully and operate with excellence. Being creative, curious, and confident, you will be an integral part of our empowered, self-managing, multi-disciplinary Engineering teams - designing, building, releasing, and maintaining products. Working as an equal partner with the Product and Delivery teams, you will deliver sophisticated and robust solutions to solve daring problems for our customers and colleagues.

You will play a key role in driving our ambition to create a best-in-class software Engineering team, environment, and culture. We are looking for people to join our community of engineers to drive this transformation, build a modern digital ecosystem using exciting technologies, and do the best work of their careers.

What You’ll Do

Your key accountabilities will include

• Lead Software Engineering Managers to build and maintain high quality and reliable software
• Responsible for the Engineering excellence in Stores Payments & Infrastructure: championing engineering best practices including agile methodologies, DevOps, continuous integration and deployment, test automation, and code quality.
• Active prioritisation legacy systems’ modernisation, whilst ensuring stability and security across our technology estate.
• Line manage and develop Engineering Managers to ensure they have the right skills, development plans and bias to learning.
• Maintain and cultivate effective relationships with Product, Delivery, Architecture and InfoSec counterparts to prioritise, problem solve & maximise value to market.
• Work with the wider Technology function to implement the technical strategy, adopting the North Star principles. You will define and execute the software engineering strategy aligned with our broader business objectives. This includes establishing technical vision, adopting architecture standards, and engineering practices that enable scalability, reliability, and innovation across our digital platforms, e-commerce and POS systems, supply chain technology, and in-store solutions.

Who You Are

Your skills and experience will include

• Previous polyglot hands‑on senior software engineer
• Excellent knowledge in TechOps/DevOps, Infrastructure, and/or IoT
• Excellent knowledge in all stack areas, from front‑end through to back‑end
• Extensive background in software engineering with several years’ experience in a variety of systems and technologies
• Consistent track record in delivering, operating, leading, hiring and shifting at Product Group level and above
• Excellent understanding of System Design, Software Architecture, Cloud and Infrastructure best practices

Tech Stack

M&S uses a variety of technologies. For this role that includes:

• POS systems and e-commerce platforms
• IoT and device management
• TechOps/Infrastructure
• Mule, Kafka, MQ
• Cloud - Azure
• CI/CD - AzureOps and GitHub Actions
• Observability: Dynatrace

What’s In It For You

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third‑party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal
• Market‑leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you

Everyone’s Welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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