Software Development Squad Lead in Reading

At AND, we accelerate the development of digital capabilities. In practice, that means helping ambitious leaders and organisations build the teams, products, processes and even operational structures they need to close the digital skills gap within their organisation today, so that they thrive tomorrow. Clients rely on our experience, agility and craft skills across tech and business strategy, software development, AI and product management to address some of the toughest challenges facing their businesses.

We bring aboard thinkers, tinkerers, passionate software craftspeople and inspiring technologists to help us solve these challenges. Together, we’re united by a sense of pragmatism, purpose and a deeply-held belief that digital products and technology alone won’t transform a business or save the world: it’s the people that count.

As a Software Development Squad Lead at AND Digital, you will bring a depth of experience around tech and digital products, combining this with a track record for leading high performing teams. You will bring a technical specialism across a Club’s portfolio of clients, onsite and in multi-skilled agile delivery teams. As a result, you will need to be able to:

• Spearhead the design and end-to-end software delivery for business-critical digital, eCommerce and mobile platforms across diverse industries.
• Have software engineering experience across a wide range of technologies; with a particular focus on full-stack JavaScript/TypeScript based solutions (Node.js / React / React Native) across web and mobile. Competent in application architecture and CI/CD. Comfortable being hands-on with development teams, understanding what great code looks like and able to see the bigger picture.
• Proven experience mentoring and sharing and receiving regular feedback to help the Developer community develop and become more effective in their specialisms.
• Experience collaborating with operations teams to shape the people we recruit, the client projects we win and be passionate about being part of the wider digital community, and contributing to and representing the business.
• Be comfortable shaping how we deliver our engagements being the content (technical) experts bringing the best thinking of AND to our clients in terms of standards, templates, ways of working, tools and accelerators.
• Experience of working as a senior team member in Scrum or Kanban teams, applying best practices and using common teamwork techniques.
• Champion software quality and technical vision for AND and our clients.
• Champion TDD/BDD/XP Software development.
• Facilitate problem solving and work as a team to bring software to life.
• Lead and develop a squad of ANDis (aligned to Software Development across various tech stacks), including performance management, engagement, and day-to-day people support (with People Partner guidance where needed).
• Act as the key point of contact for Performance & Progression, providing regular feedback, mentoring, and career development support.
• Drive high engagement across the squad, ensuring wellbeing, effective use of time (holiday, upskilling, innovation), and strong communication.
• Contribute to the Club’s vision and objectives, aligning your squad to key initiatives and creating clear purpose and direction.
• Collaborate with People Partner, other Squad Leads, and Client Service colleagues to raise issues, support planning, and ensure successful delivery of engagements.
• Work in a collaborative environment where your ideas and opinions are valued and respected.
• Work with junior engineers in your team and assist with their mentoring and career development.

To do that, it’s essential you bring the following:

• Software engineering experience across a wide range of technologies; with a particular focus on full-stack JavaScript/TypeScript based solutions (Node.js / React / React Native) across web and mobile. Competent in application architecture and CI/CD. Comfortable being hands-on with development teams, understanding what great code looks like and able to see the bigger picture.
• Experience working on large-scale, multiple industries, eCommerce, Mobile and enterprise-level software development projects.
• Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure, deployments, and scalable architecture, with specific, hands-on experience working within Microsoft Azure ecosystems.
• Experience Line Managing and being a Tech Leader for teams of 5+ people – handling some of the tricky stuff as well as developing the talent within your team.
• The ability to facilitate problem solving and work as a team to make them a reality.
• The ability to work in a collaborative environment where your ideas and opinions are valued and respected.
• A deep understanding of a variety of delivery methodologies (most importantly, Agile).
• Proximity to Reading / Thames Valley (AND and Client sites presence essential).
• An understanding of the need to be flexible – to tailor your approach depending on who you’re working with, to see the opportunity when things aren’t perfect, to enable teams to deliver remarkable work by wearing these different hats!

It’s helpful if you also have:

• Experience working in a professional services set up so that you understand the dynamics of supplier-client relationships, including working from AND and Client sites.

From the work we deliver, to the way we serve and support our people, we work hard to ensure that there’s nowhere quite like AND. But joining a company is a two-way street: the fit has to work on both sides. So before you apply, here’s three key things to understand about us:

• We’re built for people - like, real humans. Not ‘resources’ or ‘staff’. That means happiness and wellbeing really do matter to us, and we hate unnecessary hierarchy and bureaucracy.
• There’s no well-trodden path ahead: AND is growing fast and forging a new trail. That’s exciting, and gives us all the autonomy and opportunity we love - but bear in mind it also demands focus, patience and resilience.
• Diversity is a priority. After all, to build great products that a wide variety of different people love to use, we need a wide variety of people to help us build them. So diversity is more than a policy or a word: it’s business critical for us.

Still sound good? Great! Fill out the short application form below and we’ll be in touch.