Head of Software Development at Aculocity

Your Mission

You will be responsible for the delivery, management, and implementation of applications and solutions that support customers, employees, and business partners. As a member of the senior leadership team, you will be responsible for making investment and priority trade-off decisions, negotiating and managing vendor contracts, and recruiting and developing high performing teams. You’ll also provide vision and leadership to a team that includes several full-time employees, plus contractors.

Responsibilities

• Lead and inspire the application development team to engage with the business and identify new functionality, develop compelling business cases, prioritize projects and develop plans that maximize return on investment for the company.
• Lead a team managing all aspects of application development and delivery across multiple functions, business units and business lines.
• Effectively initiate, plan, schedule, control, and bring to closure multiple high priority projects.
• Develop and lead a collaborative and Agile software development approach that improves velocity, while maintaining a strong focus on both quality and scalability. 
• Drive the cultural changes necessary to enable a continuous delivery model, and foster a strong focus on automation of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). 
• Foster a strong customer service mind-set throughout the application development team, while championing thought leadership and partnership with the business.
• Partner with business leaders to create robust solution roadmaps that are integrated with architecture and operations.
• Seek out, validate, and bring to the technology organization innovative best practices and ideas from the outside, with a particular emphasis on application development methodologies.
• Identify emerging technology trends, especially in the area of SaaS and cloud computing, and ensure the company is leveraging them when appropriate to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and drive value.
• Ensure that all application development initiatives are well managed and delivered to meet expectations on functionality, timeliness, and cost.
• Develop, implement and monitor software development policies and controls to ensure data accuracy, security, and legal and regulatory compliance.
• Partner with internal customers to develop training and deployment plans aimed at maximizing both user adoption and realization of business benefits.
• Prepare software development status reports and keep management, client and other stakeholders informed of project status and related issues.
• Manage application vendor relationships and negotiate contracts to procure resources and technology solutions to meet the company’s strategic objectives.
• Assure lowest possible cost of ownership of applications through vendor negotiations and benchmarking. 
• Recruit, develop and retain high caliber software development talent, especially for key leadership positions, and develop a succession plan.
• Implement and champion a robust professional development program, and continuously upskill team members to keep them current.
• Evaluate team members performance, provide candid feedback and high impact coaching that enables (and motivates) them to achieve departmental as well as enterprise goals.
• Build a culture of innovation and engagement, focusing on strengthening the organization’s employer brand.

Qualifications:

• Four-year university degree or college diploma in the field of computer science and/or 6-8 years equivalent work experience.
• An MS, MBA or related advanced degree is a plus.
• A minimum of 10 years in software development, project management, process development and resource management.
• Has successfully led development and delivery of multiple complex business technology solutions into production that have achieved or surpassed business goals.
• Experience developing and supporting mission critical applications optimized to run in the cloud or virtualized environments.
• Deep knowledge of system architecture, technical design, and system and software development technology.
• Expertise with managing application development at scale, employing SDLC methodologies including Agile and Scrum.
• Knowledge of emerging trends and developments in PaaS, SaaS, iOS/Android app API, cloud, AI, machine learning and other digital technologies.
• Ability to perform general mathematical calculations for the purpose of creating needs assessments, budgets, and so on.