Head of Development

Get AI-powered advice on this job and more exclusive features.

Our client is a leading Secondaries fund specializing in secondary transactions in Private Equity and Private Credit through both closed-end and open-ended funds. They focus on delivering value through disciplined investment strategies, leveraging deep market knowledge, and innovative solutions. As a rapidly growing firm, they are looking to expand their team with dynamic and motivated professionals to help drive their continued success.

This role will lead a geographically dispersed development and test team. Using Agile and DevOps approaches, they orchestrate the design, build, integration, testing, maintenance, and operation of an ecosystem of off-the-shelf and bespoke applications to meet a wide range of business needs.

The successful candidate will have come from a development background before progressing into a management role. They will possess an excellent understanding of common application architectures and the Azure Full Stack (including Power Platform) to the extent that they could be \’hands-on\’ at times if they feel the need arises. They will also have demonstrable experience in building strong relationships with business stakeholders and have a passion for partnering closely with them to solve real problems through technology.

Key Tasks and Responsibilities:

Responsible (activities/tasks that will typically be performed by you)

• Area/Team Management – lead the development and test team with due consideration to the strategy, policies, processes/procedures and standards; identify, obtain and manage the resources needed for the development, integration and support of IT systems/applications; cultivate a culture aligned with organisational and departmental values whilst promoting diversity and inclusion; facilitate effective working relationships between team members, the wider IT team and business stakeholders; co-lead recruitment activities.
• People Management – manage the development and test team; supervise individuals providing direction, support and feedback; set OKRs/goals and monitor progress against agreed performance criteria; advise individuals on career paths and encourage proactive development of skills; provide mentoring to support personal and professional growth; input into formal processes such as annual reviews and performance management.
• Augmentation Partner Management – own and cultivate the strategic partnership with an outsourced resource augmentation vendor; look to reduce costs and risks whilst creating opportunities for innovation and value creation; maintain a framework to monitor and manage the relationship; build a good understanding of alternative suppliers to inform sourcing strategies and ensure cost and service competitiveness.
• Portfolio Management & Delivery – work closely with business and technology stakeholders to shape, plan and deliver well-designed solutions aligned to business strategy. Responsible for holistic delivery planning ensuring initiatives are sequenced and prioritised effectively and interdependencies actively managed. Report on progress, milestones, and key achievements to key stakeholders and governance forums.
• Development Practices – select and oversee the approach for a given solution delivery, selecting appropriately from predictive (plan-driven/waterfall) or adaptive (iterative/agile) approaches. Ensure approach taken follows industry best practices, is empirical and compliant with IT policies, processes and procedures.
• Solution Identification & Design – work with your development team and technology stakeholders to establish possible technology options for an established set of requirements; oversee/contribute to the specification of off-the-shelf and/or bespoke applications, components and interfaces and their translation into detailed designs; leverage 3rd parties to plug gaps in knowledge/experience to ensure that guidance provided is appropriate to the needs of the firm.
• Professional Networking – in conjunction with peers maintain a network of recognised vendors and individuals (inside and/or outside the firm) who can deliver expert advice in areas relevant to the organisation\’s current and future IT needs; build out the Coller IT brand promoting the forward-thinking and innovative approach taken to investment in technology and data.
• Continuous Improvement – drive the monitoring, assessment, trialling and implementation of new/improved methods, tools, infrastructure, standards, practices and processes with a view to improving the efficiency or effectiveness within the development team and the wider IT team. Encourage and motivate individuals to share innovative ideas and learn from failures.

Support (activities/tasks that will typically be performed by other members of the IT team (or wider firm) but you will provide input/assistance)

• Prototype Construction – where appropriate model, simulate or prototype the behaviour of a proposed solution to enable approval by stakeholders and effective construction.
• Solution Development – write/refactor, test, deploy and document complex code/scripts and integration software services; apply agreed standards and tools to achieve well-engineered outcomes.
• Incident/Problem Remediation – Assist with the investigation and resolution of operational issues by aiding with the identification of required changes to business processes and/or IT systems.
• Strategy/Planning – support the creation, maintenance and execution of the IT strategy; input into the formulation of business unit strategies/plans; contribute to the preparation of the IT departmental business plan.
• Systems Landscape – support the definition/maintenance of the enterprise technical design for IT services/applications.

Qualifications and Experience

• A career history that includes operating as a developer before transitioning into a development management role.
• Excellent understanding of architectural best practices, application architectures and the Azure Full Stack (including Power Platform).
• Coordination of geographically dispersed technical teams consisting of permanent, contract and outsourced individuals.
• Building/maintaining strong relationships with business stakeholders and developing partnerships that allowed for the collective solving of real problems through technology.
• Operating in a firm that has adopted a cloud-native environment and embraces Agile and DevOps/DevSecOps.
• Demonstrable experience of evolving team culture and \’modus operandi\’ to align with transformational changes being championed at a departmental or firm level.
• Certification(s) relating to Agile methodologies or frameworks.
• Oversight of an offshore resource augmentation partner.
• Educated to degree level or equivalent in IT, computer science or related field.
• Prior experience of Private Markets, Alternatives, Asset Management and/or Financial Services is advantageous.
• Leadership – Clearly articulating goals and objectives, and motivating and leading others towards their achievement.
• Counselling and Developing Others – Helping others to understand their values, needs, goals and limitations and coaching them to develop their effectiveness towards the limits of their potential.
• Planning & Monitoring – Determining a course of action by breaking it down into smaller steps and by planning and allocating each of these, making allowance for potential problems and escalating if necessary. Checking progress against targets, taking action to resolve exceptions/issues and reporting and escalating where necessary.
• Cross-Functional and Inter-Disciplinary Awareness – Understanding the needs, objectives and constraints of those in other disciplines and functions.
• Customer Focus – Understanding the needs of the internal or external customer and keeping these in mind when taking actions or making decisions.
• Influence, Persuasion and Personal Impact – Conveying a level of confidence and professionalism when engaging with stakeholders, influencing positively and persuading others to take a specific course of action when not in a position of authority.
• Interacting with People – Establishing relationships, contributing to an open culture and maintaining contacts with people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. Ability to adapt style and approach to meet the needs of different audiences.
• Initiative – Being curious and proactive, anticipating opportunities for systems, service or product improvement or development and taking appropriate action(s).
• Creativity – Taking innovative approaches to problem solving and/or devising inventive and creative solutions.

Seniority level

• Director

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Information Technology
• Industries
• Technology, Information and Media

#J-18808-Ljbffr