Head of Platform Delivery

Job Responsibilities

Our client has an opportunity for a Head of Platform Delivery to join their IT Leadership team.

The Head of Platform Delivery is responsible for the creation, development and management of a dedicated centre of excellence and pool of resources that brings together all platform delivery teams.

As Head of Platform Delivery, you will be empowered to drive for best practice and standard ways of working and the team will lead the cost efficient, stable, resilient and innovative delivery of all IT platforms/applications/systems for the company.  You will ensure that you deliver all platforms in an optimal and flexible way to support a high pace of change, the business needs and risk appetite.  You will support the definition of SLAs and be responsible for delivering them.  You will support the drive for automation and tooling to support cost reductions where possible of existing platforms.   You will lead the move to Development Operations and ensure platforms are evergreen. You will determine and implement the right balance of outsourcing versus internal strength to optimise effective and efficient delivery and reduce platform costs while maintaining SLAs and committed change.

Platform teams are responsible for small change within each platform and for providing resources and capabilities to larger change initiatives managed by the change management office and covering multiple platforms, driving the effective delivery of change to secure highest possible return on investment from investment.   You will drive simplification, standardisation, automation and moving to ‘company’ wide solutions.

Working with the other functions within IT you will lead a transformation on how to build and deliver IT solutions within the company. You will cater for current core platform delivery with newer born in the cloud platforms.  You will set out a vision on how to transform our delivery and what is needed in terms of people, process and technology.

Key areas of responsibility (not limited to):

Platform Governance

• Accountable for and representing platform delivery on the IT leadership team, available to support peer group and CTO in all matters of IT.
• Establish the right governance framework within the platform teams and across also enterprise architecture, information security and infrastructure/operations.
• Establish commitments on Platform Service Level agreements, ensure relevant KPI monitoring and reporting is in place and regularly monitored
• Define and implement standards around software configuration and development/DevOps that are applicable to all our platforms and consistently implemented.
• Implement and oversee all relevant security and compliance standards as defined either by platform management or by the Information Security team.
• Define alongside the Infrastructure and Operations team the infrastructural architecture for platforms, ensuring consistency, scalability, leveraging scale and optimising efficiency and user experience.
• Own, develop and continually review team and platform budgets
• Develop and progress the platform roadmaps.

Platform Delivery

• Lead the delivery of all platforms, supporting and managing all platform delivery managers, to ensure we meet committed delivery SLAs.
• Work closely with the Change Management Office to ensure all large change delivery is correctly planned and resourced to ensure successful delivery with planned outcomes achieved as per commitments.
• Ensure we have effective business analysis and solution architecture capabilities in place to translate business requirements to technology solutions and maximise value creation.
• Work closely with platform delivery managers to ensure a robust, quick and high value small change delivery process and execution is in place/delivered.
• Look for innovative solutions to business requirements and support the platform teams responsibilities for solution architecture.
• Optimise our Quality Assurance/testing processes to ensure an optimal pace of delivery and quality of delivery.
• Accountable for the overall platform release schedule to eliminate conflicts, dependencies and mitigate any risks of business disruption
• Implement Development Operations ways of working to enable a balance between run and build, ensuring effective problem management is balanced with change delivery.
• Manage all key stakeholder relationships throughout the platform delivery cycles.
• Establish a M‘labs’ or skunkworks function within existing resources to enable, promote and support R&D and innovation activities
• Create a cross functional matrix relationship with infrastructure and operations, change management and vendor management to ensure an effective delivery of all IT services and change.
• Continually seek to reduce the cost of delivery of our platforms whilst maintaining appropriate SLAs and ‘evergreen’.
• Engage with key stakeholders as required on support/service issues.
• Act as an escalation point for business partners, retailers and vendors in relation to platform delivery.
• Establish regular review processes for platform delivery KPI’s to ensure agreed targets are met.
• Benchmark our platforms against other industries and keep up to date with relevant developments in the area through reading, attending conferences, networking.
• Responsible for platform budgets as part of quarterly budgeting process.
• Responsible for ensuring there is proven and regularly tested disaster recovery processes in place for all platforms.

Team Leadership / Management

• Evaluate and restructure the team as necessary on an ongoing basis to deliver company and IT strategy.
• Establish a working environment which promotes effective working, talent development/utilisation, empowerment, collaboration, inclusion and high performing teams.
• Develop, direct, coach, mentor and empower team members in line with our mission, goals and performance metrics.
• Review and continually assess the teams training and capability needs to ensure all members of the team have the necessary skills, resources and support to achieve their objectives.
• Invest in and lead the broadening skillsets to enable mobility between platform teams and even between other teams within IT.
• Ensure that all team members have clear, measurable performance objectives and personal development plans which are regularly reviewed and assessed.
• Support the ongoing development and improvement of our employee value proposition.
• Allocate functional roles, levels of accountability, RACI and work assignments on an ongoing basis.
• Implement the HR policies and procedures to develop an efficient and motivated workforce.
• Foster motivation and morale through promoting good employee relations and effective communication processes.
• Continually monitor resource levels and the balance of insource/contractor/outsource to ensure we are correctly resourced both in terms of capability and capacity to deliver upon commitments around platform delivery.
• Resolve resource issues if and when they arise.
• Lead and manage/develop relationships with partners/suppliers

Experience Required

The successful candidate will be/have:

• 10 years + experience in platform delivery and a track record of delivery high quality results
• Proven experience in team leadership
• Experience with large scale platform development and delivery
• Experience with the management and orchestration of on premise, hybrid and private/public cloud environments
• Ability to build and sustain relationships that deliver results and effectively collaborative with diverse teams
• Experience owning and managing a department budget
• Experience partnering with and leading third party and hybrid teams
• Experience with different methodologies such as DevOps, CICD (Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery)/Agile/Kanban
• Experience in process engineering/business analysis
• Commercially focused with an ability to translate all delivery to value
• Highly organised, structured and performance driven
• Deep experience with ecommerce platforms
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and management skills with the ability to interact and influence effectively at all levels across the business and to get things done
• Personable, pro-active, professional and able to demonstrate full commitment to exceptional outcomes
• Able to work effectively in a matrix environment
• Strong people leadership skills and ability to develop people
• Adaptable, willing to take on tasks outside of immediate area of responsibility

A degree or corresponding relevant experience in the platforms/development domain such as computer science or engineering