Delivery Lead – Hybrid – CPT at Datafin Recruitment

ENVIRONMENT:

• A leading UK-based Gaming, Leisure & Entertainment Group is looking for a Delivery Lead to lead delivery across multiple agile software development squads, ensuring teams deliver valuable outcomes predictably, sustainably, and transparently. 
• The Delivery Lead sits at the centre of the software delivery lifecycle, partnering closely with Product Managers, Technical Leads, Engineers, QA, Designers, and business stakeholders. You will be responsible for coordinating delivery across multiple squads, managing dependencies, driving effective planning, removing impediments, and improving the systems and processes that enable successful delivery.
• This is not a Scrum Master or Project Manager role. While facilitation and planning form part of the role, the primary focus is creating
• the conditions for successful delivery by improving team effectiveness, managing delivery risk, enabling collaboration, and driving continuous improvement across multiple teams. 
• The successful candidate will combine strong organisational skills, stakeholder management, data-driven decision-making, and a passion for helping teams achieve outcomes while continuously improving how work gets done.

DUTIES:

Delivery planning and execution

• Own delivery planning, coordination, and execution across multiple squads.
• Facilitate effective planning, refinement, stand-ups, retrospectives, demos, and other delivery ceremonies where appropriate.
• Work closely with Product Managers to ensure priorities, roadmaps, and sprint objectives are clear and achievable.
• Ensure work is sufficiently understood, scoped, and prepared before entering delivery.
• Coordinate delivery activities across teams and functions to support successful outcomes.
• Manage risks, blockers, assumptions, and dependencies proactively.
• Support release planning and release readiness activities.
• Balance competing priorities across squads to maximise overall business value and delivery outcomes.
• Drive effective communication and alignment between Product, Engineering, QA, Design, and business stakeholders.

Delivery governance and reporting

• Maintain transparency of delivery status, risks, milestones, forecasts, and dependencies.
• Provide clear and concise reporting to stakeholders and leadership.
• Use delivery metrics and outcomes to assess team effectiveness and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Support quarterly planning, roadmap delivery, and strategic initiatives.
• Ensure agreed delivery processes, standards, and governance practices are understood and followed.
• Drive accountability through visibility, data, and effective communication.

Discovery and delivery readiness

• Support discovery activities by ensuring appropriate planning, coordination, and readiness
• Help teams identify delivery risks early during discovery and solution design.
• Ensure requirements, designs, dependencies, estimates, and supporting artefacts
• are prepared before implementation begins.
• Facilitate collaboration between technical and business stakeholders to improve
• delivery confidence and reduce uncertainty.
• Help teams make informed trade-off decisions between scope, quality, risk, and timelines.

Dependency and stakeholder management

• Coordinate delivery dependencies across squads, teams, and business functions.
• Build strong relationships with stakeholders across the organisation.
• Manage competing expectations and communicate delivery impacts clearly.
• Ensure dependencies and risks are identified early and actively managed.
• Facilitate alignment and decision-making across complex initiatives involving multiple teams.

Continuous improvement and innovation

• Drive continuous improvement of delivery practices, processes, and team effectiveness.
• Foster a culture of experimentation, learning, and evidence-based decision making.
• Identify opportunities to simplify processes, eliminate waste, improve quality, and accelerate delivery.
• Champion the adoption and effective use of AI and agentic tools to improve productivity, planning, communication, reporting, analysis, and team efficiency.
• Evaluate new tools, technologies, and ways of working, using measurable outcomes to determine effectiveness.
• Promote automation and workflow optimisation wherever practical.
• Share successful practices, learnings, and innovations across the delivery community.

Team enablement

• Create an environment that enables teams to perform at their best.
• Encourage accountability, ownership, and collaboration.
• Support healthy team dynamics and constructive conflict resolution.
• Coach teams on effective delivery practices and agile principles.
• Contribute to the growth and maturity of the wider delivery function.

REQUIREMENTS:

Essential:

• Experience leading delivery within agile software development environments.
• Experience coordinating delivery across multiple teams, workstreams, or squads.
• Strong understanding of Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and modern product delivery practices.
• Experience facilitating planning, refinement, retrospectives, reviews, and delivery governance activities.
• Experience managing delivery risks, dependencies, and competing priorities.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Ability to analyse delivery data and use metrics to improve outcomes.
• Experience driving continuous improvement initiatives.
• Ability to influence and align stakeholders without formal authority.
• Excellent organisation, planning, and problem-solving skills.
• Experience with Jira, Plandek, and delivery analytics tools
• Experience implementing automation, AI-assisted workflows, or agentic tooling within delivery, operational, or knowledge-work environments.

Desirable:

• Experience working in product-led organisations.
• Experience supporting discovery, roadmap planning, and strategic delivery activities.
• Exposure to portfolio-level delivery planning and governance.
• Familiarity with software engineering, testing, release management, and product development lifecycles.

ATTRIBUTES:

• Ownership and accountability
• Collaboration and teamwork
• Curiosity and continuous learning
• Pragmatic problem solving
• Transparency and honesty
• Data-informed decision making
• Adaptability and resilience
• A focus on outcomes over activity
• Technology curiosity and experimentation
• A bias towards simplification, automation, and continuous improvement
• Willingness to challenge existing processes constructively
• Enthusiasm for leveraging AI and emerging technologies to improve effectiveness