Software Development Manager: Lead & Modernise APIs

Apply now!; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hybrid work

Office in London

Generous benefits

Job summary

Penguin Random House in London is seeking an experienced Software Development Manager to lead the Technology team's Integration Services from their Embassy Gardens office. This hands‑on leadership role blends people management with technical direction to deliver reliable, scalable software and modernise the integration landscape.

Around 70% of time is people leadership and delivery leadership, with ~30% hands‑on technical contribution, enabling credible guidance while staying close to the

Qualifications

• Substantial experience as a senior or lead developer or technical team lead.
• Proven line or team leadership, including developer coaching, performance conversations, objective setting and capability growth.
• Deep, current C# and .NET 10+ expertise, including ASP.NET Core and Web API services.
• Strong API and microservice engineering, plus event‑driven delivery with Azure Service Bus, Kafka or an equivalent messaging platform.
• Practical CI/CD, automated testing, Git, secure development and production‑support experience.
• Working knowledge of containers and infrastructure as code, with the judgement to collaborate effectively on platform decisions.
• Azure API Management, Logic Apps, Functions and wider cloud‑native Azure engineering.
• Node.js, Python or TypeScript in a mixed‑language engineering estate.
• Integration or middleware modernisation, especially migration from legacy point‑to‑point solutions.
• GitHub, GitLab and Jira, including practical toolchain or pipeline consolidation.
• AI‑assisted engineering practices and the governance needed for responsible adoption.

Responsibilities

• Lead, support and develop our permanent software developers across Integration Services, including regular 1:1s and development planning.
• Own recruitment, onboarding, retention and succession planning for the developer community.
• Build capability against target architecture and delivery pipeline, identifying skills gaps.
• Use your strong C# and .NET expertise to support code and design reviews, pairing and complex problem‑solving.
• Define and maintain engineering standards, development controls and quality gates (CI/CD, testing, security).
• Establish responsible AI‑assisted development standards including validation and data handling.
• Improve developer tooling, source control, pipelines and work tracking to strengthen delivery and maintainability.
• Lead healthy Agile delivery across squads with effective planning, refinement and retrospectives.
• Support the Head of Integration Services with developer allocation and capacity balancing.
• Monitor squad health, dependencies and delivery risks with clear reporting.
• Own developer deployment and implementation quality within approved architecture with cross‑functional collaboration.
• Escalate significant architecture, security, data, or delivery issues to accountable owners.

Skills

Leadership experience

C# and .NET expertise

API and microservices

Azure Service Bus / Kafka

CI/CD & automated testing

Tools

GitHub

GitLab

Jira

Job description

Penguin Random House in London is seeking an experienced Software Development Manager to lead the Technology team's Integration Services from their Embassy Gardens office. This hands‑on leadership role blends people management with technical direction to deliver reliable, scalable software and modernise the integration landscape.

Around 70% of time is people leadership and delivery leadership, with ~30% hands‑on technical contribution, enabling credible guidance while staying close to the