Build Director in London

The King's community is dedicated to the service of society. King's Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world.

Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.

Information Technology (IT) provides core IT infrastructure and application services in support of education, research and administration across the College on 5 main campuses based in central London. Everything IT does is designed to support one or more of the three critical capabilities enabling the College to achieve its strategic objectives:

• Excellent student experience
• Excellence in research
• Efficient administration

The Build Director will oversee the design, development and implementation of software applications within the university. This role is crucial in ensuring that the University's applications support Student and Staff functions effectively and efficiently. The role requires a strategic thinker with strong technical expertise, leadership skills, a deep understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC) methodologies, and technology platforms. The Build Director will lead a team of solution architects, designers and developers to deliver innovative, scalable, and secure software solutions that align with the University's mission and goals. This is a full time post of 35 hours per week, and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent experience, in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field.
• Minimum of 10 years of experience in software development, with at least 5 years in a leadership or managerial role.
• Proven track record of delivering large-scale, complex software projects in a Higher Education or similar environment.
• Experience with cloud-based platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and modern software development frameworks.
• Strong technical expertise in software development languages (e.g., Java, Python, C#) and frameworks.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Deep understanding of Agile, DevOps, CI/CD practices and AI.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.

Desirable criteria

• Familiarity with academic and administrative systems (e.g., student information systems, learning management systems) is highly desirable.
• Experience with Content Management Systems and Customer Relationship Management solutions.
• Awareness of other common IT frameworks, in particular SAFe and ITIL.

At King's, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university. The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination.

When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King's guidance. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day. We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.