Engineer Practice Lead

Purpose:

The Engineering Practice Lead will focus on the growth and maturity of our software engineering practices. This position will report to the Chief Technology Officer and will be charged with improving the maturity of software engineering practices. This position will manage a team of engineers who will directly partner with application teams using an approach similar to a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) model.

The Engineering Practice Lead will also be responsible for technical training, including the design of our technical training program, evaluation and building/procuring of technical content, and participating in the delivery, and assessing the effectiveness of training.

The ideal candidate is self-motivated, passionate about software engineering practices, and committed to continual learning and self-development. Athene builds and uses advanced technology, and the lead will build the technical skills and engineering practices of our development teams. This position will have leadership, training, and hands-on opportunities.

Accountabilities:

• Maintaining code standards, engineering best practices, and training curricula.
  Directly managing team of Senior Engineers who will be embedded in various application teams to support growth and maturing of Software Engineering practices.
• Partner with tech leads and application development managers to apply engineering practices.
• Lead Engineering Coaches, Engineers, and Solutions Architects within the Engineering Practice.
• Staying current with new technologies and helping select  innovative platforms to enhance the capabilities of the business; this includes learning the technologies, integrating them within the company, and training our teams to ensure their continued adaptability.
• Collaborating on the technical design for new and existing applications and features, partnering with Product Owners and Solution Architects to ensure that those products are built to meet customer needs using feasible and scalable technical solutions.
• Partnering with business-facing IT stakeholders, presenting a compelling vision of the engineering strategy, and being able to successfully influence with matrix authority.
• Solving highly complex problems alongside fellow team members, taking an alternative approach to produce solutions that may not have been considered before.
• Supporting automation through a robust Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery model, helping teams to align to standards and expectations for DevOps tools and practices.
• Ensuring that software quality and testing is at the front of the design & development process.
• Being a servant-leader, without ego or prejudice, who encourages ideas, feedback, and challenge from everyone regardless of level or experience.

Qualifications and Experience:

Below is an overview of the skills and experience we are looking for, but remember, don’t rule yourself out if you don’t have everything on the list – it’s your intellect and your attitude we’re really after.

Desired Skills

• Proactive evangelist of engineering best practice and high-quality software development principles.
• An innovative thought leader who can create and communicate a vision that others will be inspired by; and will want to shift all obstacles to bring that vision to reality.
• Have a passion for coaching and mentoring talent, empowering individuals to think differently in how they approach and solve problems.
• Work collaboratively to freely share knowledge and experience.
• Be effective at making great decisions and delivering fantastic outcomes in line with Product and Business strategy.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills; able to hold one own’s in a strategy discussion with the key business stakeholders as well as capable of technical deep-dives in design reviews.

Essential Experience

• 10+ years as lead engineer, architect, product, or delivery lead using a range of technologies and tools.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, manage multiple priorities, deadlines, requirements, and decisions.
• Highly established in managing experienced engineers, along with a demonstrated track record of growing and building high-performing teams.
• Proven track record of delivery using a variety of coding techniques and languages.
• Python expertise is required.
• Ideally hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree, preferably in a Computer Science, Engineering, or STEM subject. Comparable commercial experience may also be considered.

Desirable Experience

• Experience building relationships with senior leaders working in various locations.
• Experience working with and supporting staff based in India.
• Proven commercial experience with some of the following technologies: C#, Java, JavaScript (Node, Angular, jQuery, etc.), Python, Ruby, SQL, AWS Cloud Data and Application Ecosystem, other Big Data technologies (HDFS, Hive, Spark, Kafka, Elastic, etc.)
• Knowledge and experience of DevOps as part of Agile software development as well as a good understanding and extensive experience of Agile Methodologies
• Familiarity with supporting tools & technologies: GitHub, Jira, Confluence, Jenkins, Kibana, Selenium, Docker, Containers