Technical Delivery Manager - 12 month FTC in Richmond

Who are we? Hi, we’re Tails.com – we turn good days into great years for dogs and their humans. We're working towards longer lives for millions of healthy, happy dogs by providing tailored nutrition that adapts to each dog’s unique needs. It all starts with a few simple questions about their age, breed, zoomie level and tastebuds. From there, owners can create a personalised meal plan that's delivered to their door every month. No guesswork, no overwhelm. Just exactly the right care for every dog, every day. It's pretty clever stuff.

As a certified B Corp, being a responsible business is built into how we work – upholding high social and environmental standards to create better walkies for generations to come. Now, we’re cooking up big plans. Having created an entirely new category in dog food, we have the backing of Purina – one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards these same goals (and a bunch of very smart office dogs, all working on their own thing).

Overview of the job: You will lead the end-to-end coordination and execution of complex technology transformation initiatives spanning multiple Product, Engineering, Data, Operations and business teams. You'll create an integrated view of delivery across participating teams, identifying dependencies, risks, sequencing constraints and decisions required to keep transformation moving. You'll work closely with Product Managers, Engineering Managers and Lead Engineers without replacing their accountability for individual products or teams. Your focus will be on the programme-level picture: bringing individual plans together, identifying conflicts early, facilitating decisions, removing blockers and ensuring senior stakeholders have a clear and realistic view of progress.

3 best things about the job:

• Lead Major Technology Transformation: Lead some of Tails.com’s biggest and most complex technology transformation programmes, working across multiple teams, technologies and business areas.
• Be at the Centre of Delivery: Become the connective tissue that brings complex programmes together, solving dependencies, driving decisions and turning ambitious transformation plans into reality.
• High Visibility & Influence: Work closely with senior Product and Engineering leaders, giving you genuine influence and broad exposure across the business.

Measures of success – In the first few months, you would have:

• Major transformation initiatives progressing with clear ownership, milestones and delivery visibility.
• Cross-squad dependencies identified and addressed before they become critical delivery issues.
• Increased confidence in transformation forecasts and earlier visibility when plans are at risk.
• Product Managers and Engineering Managers spending less time coordinating work outside their own domains.
• Engineering squads experiencing fewer unexpected interruptions caused by transformation dependencies.
• Risks, issues and decisions being surfaced and resolved at the appropriate level quickly.
• Strong alignment across Product, Engineering, Data, Operations and third-party partners.
• Transformation work being integrated more effectively with existing product and engineering roadmaps.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Leading the end-to-end delivery coordination of complex technology transformation initiatives spanning multiple teams and business areas.
• Creating and maintaining an integrated transformation delivery plan across participating squads and functions.
• Mapping, managing and actively tracking cross-squad dependencies, sequencing and critical paths.
• Maintaining clear programme-level visibility of risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies and decisions.
• Identifying delivery risks early and driving appropriate mitigation, escalation and decision-making.
• Coordinating cross-squad planning and ensuring transformation requirements are visible within squad plans.
• Working with Product and Engineering leadership to identify conflicts between transformation requirements and existing roadmap commitments.
• Facilitating programme-level prioritisation and trade-off decisions while ensuring accountability for product prioritisation remains with the appropriate Product and Engineering leaders.
• Driving programme execution and maintaining momentum from discovery through implementation and migration.
• Coordinating programme-level release and implementation readiness where changes span multiple teams or systems.
• Providing clear, concise and evidence-based reporting on programme progress, milestones, risks, dependencies and forecast confidence.
• Facilitating key cross-functional forums and ensuring decisions and actions have clear owners and deadlines.
• Building alignment across Product, Engineering, Data, Operations and third-party partners around shared transformation outcomes.
• Working closely with the Agile Practice Lead to use established delivery practices and identify systemic delivery improvements.

What you will need:

• Extensive experience delivering large, complex cross-functional technology programmes.
• Strong technical understanding and the ability to work credibly with engineering teams and technical leaders.
• Strong understanding of modern software and product delivery in an Agile environment.
• Experience coordinating multiple engineering teams simultaneously.
• Strong programme planning, dependency management and critical-path management capability.
• Experience managing risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies and programme-level decisions.
• Excellent facilitation and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven ability to influence and drive outcomes without direct authority.
• Experience working closely with Product Managers and Engineering Managers while respecting product and technical accountabilities.
• Experience communicating complex delivery information clearly to senior stakeholders.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, changing priorities and complex organisational dependencies.
• Experience coordinating third parties and external technology partners where required.
• Experience with Jira and modern delivery planning and reporting tools.
• Experience delivering major platform modernisation, technology transformation or migration programmes would be highly desirable.

A few of our core benefits include:

• Private Healthcare through AXA
• A 9 day fortnight - our office is closed every other Friday!
• 25 days of Annual Leave and 8 additional remote working days

What’s next? If this sounds like it matches your experience and what you’d love to do, we can’t wait to hear from you! If you’re unsure whether you fit our criteria exactly, please get in touch anyway. And because we believe that diverse teams perform better, we’d especially love to hear from you if you’re from an under-represented demographic.

Here’s a taster of how our recruitment process works: Once you have applied your CV will be reviewed by the Talent Acquisition Team. If selected, you will then have a call with the TA Team who will tell you more about us and the role, as well as learning more about your skills and experience. Should you be successful, the next stage will be a video call with the hiring manager. If successful, you will be invited to present a task back to a panel of interviewers. The final stage is a video call with some of our leadership team (30 mins).

Our Commitment: We’re proud to be an active equal opportunity employer. We want to give everyone a fair chance to join us in changing the world of pet food for good. We do this by conducting a structured recruitment process for all candidates, as well as actively promoting our roles to communities that are under-represented at Tails.com. During your interview process you’ll meet some of our team with varying levels of responsibility and experience. We want to give every candidate a fair interview process and if you need any reasonable adjustments made, please let us know.