Software Development Manager — Lead .NET & API Delivery

Bertelsmann-Jobs

Greater London

On-site

GBP 80,000 - 100,000

Full time

2 days ago

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Job summary

Penguin Random House in London is seeking an experienced Software Development Manager to lead our Technology team, combining people management with technical direction to deliver reliable, scalable software.

You’ll spend about 70% on people leadership, capability building and delivery leadership, and around 30% on hands-on technical contribution, guiding modernisation of our integration landscape with .NET APIs and event-driven solutions.

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, objective setting, development planning, performance management and pastoral support.
Own recruitment, onboarding, retention and succession planning for the developer community, while ensuring contractors work effectively within agreed team standards and ways of working.
Build capability against our target architecture and delivery pipeline, identifying skills gaps and creating practical opportunities for learning, coaching and delegated leadership.
Use your strong C# and .NET expertise to support code and design reviews, pairing, proof‑of‑concepts and complex technical problem‑solving where your input adds the most value.
Define and maintain engineering standards, development controls and quality gates, including CI/CD, automated testing, secure development, observability and operational readiness.
Establish responsible standards for AI‑assisted development, covering validation, security, data handling, attribution and human accountability.
Improve developer tooling, source control, pipelines and work tracking where this strengthens delivery, maintainability and control.
Lead healthy Agile delivery across the squads, ensuring effective planning, refinement, reviews, retrospectives and day‑to‑day coordination, while coaching others to take on greater delivery leadership as teams mature.
Support the Head of Integration Services with developer allocation across business‑as‑usual and project work, balancing service continuity, strategic priorities, individual development and sustainable capacity.
Monitor squad health, capacity, dependencies and delivery risks, providing clear reporting and working with product, programme and engineering stakeholders to resolve constraints.
Own developer deployment, engineering standards and implementation quality within approved architecture, while working closely with Technical Solution Architects, Senior Developers, Squad Leads, Delivery Managers and Product Owners across their respective areas of responsibility.
Escalate significant architecture, security, data, commercial or delivery issues to the appropriate accountable owner.