Head of Software Development

Joining us, you get to work for not just one high performing London Borough, but two.

Sutton and Kingston councils have a number of shared services serving both authorities, with some teams and  roles more focussed on one Council than the other, but the majority are shared across both, meaning you get multiple opportunities to learn from a wider pool of activities and two different political bodies. 

We work flexibly in both Sutton and Kingston offices, and support working at home or flexible working patterns that enable you to tailor your working life to everything else in your life. We provide the equipment and tools to enable you to work flexibly, and in return ask you to use that flexibility to be creative and ambitious in the services we deliver.

There are some really exciting things happening in both Sutton and Kingston. We are developing the London Cancer Hub, a world leading cancer research and treatment hub that will bring together professionals from across different sectors to identify and test new treatments and therapies. We are undertaking the largest housing regeneration programme ever delivered in Kingston, building new energy efficient housing that will transform some of our oldest Council owned housing. Both boroughs have publicly committed to doing what they can to tackle the climate emergency and are investing in new technologies and societal change that will help bring carbon emissions down and improve our climate impact.

We work flexibly in both Sutton and Kingston offices, providing the equipment and tools to support hybrid working patterns that enable your working life;  in return we ask you to use this to be creative and ambitious in the services we deliver. You should choose Sutton and Kingston if you are looking for an opportunity that will challenge you to deliver more, support you to achieve personal ambitions, and expect you to put borough residents at the heart of what you do.

Sutton is a well connected attractive part of London that has a reputation for excellent schools, green and leafy open spaces, and a history that drives a thriving heritage and culture offer through our museums and libraries. The Council is controlled by a long established Liberal Democrat Administration and has high ambitions set out in its corporate plan “Ambitious for Sutton”, that will ensure Sutton remains a great place to live, work and raise a family. The Council plays a leading role in a number of local partnerships and places great emphasis on engaging effectively with its residents, listening to local voices and making their message heard across London Government.

Kingston is a beautiful Royal borough with a historic setting on the banks of the Thames with excellent schools and a bustling retail centre, all surrounded by open green spaces such as RIchmond Park and Bushey Park, former recreation grounds for Tudor kings and queens. The Council is controlled by a Liberal Democrat Administration and has a corporate plan “Making Kingston Better Together” that sets out a vision to be a vibrant, diverse and inclusive borough where residents are active, empowered, engaged and able to remain independent and resilient. The Council engages with residents through a number of forums and events through the year, and like Sutton plays a leading role in developing the South West Region of London.

Our Digital & IT service is at the start of building an in-house capability for software development. This role is an exciting opportunity for someone to come and build that capability, from its beginnings through to development.

As the Head of Software Development, you will be working on projects across every aspect of the council such as digital, housing, planning, adult social care and our customer services team to name a few. You will design and lead the integration of the in-house software helping us move to the cloud, this work will be varied, impactful and rewarding!

You will also be managing up to 10 members of staff and reporting to the Head of Digital Delivery.

To support you in this role, you will be provided with a Chromebook. We are a modern organisation and we understand that life can sometimes get in the way, so with that in mind, we also offer flexible working.

The role is a hybrid working role with the expectation to come into the office when needed or join in on team days once a quarter! However, fully remote options for this role can be considered.

We're the Digital team for Kingston and Sutton councils.  We are committed to delivering excellent public services to our residents and local businesses, which is why we place the user, and their needs, at the heart of our agile delivery strategy. We are proud of our digital culture, and have a team of excellent professionals working across multi-disciplinary teams to deliver new digital services.

We're growing our digital team to support transformation work in every service area of the councils.  We're looking for people who can:

• help us put users at the centre of our services; 
• investigate and design more effective ways of delivering our services; 
• introduce new technologies and speed up our pace of delivery; or
• use data from our systems and sensors to inform our services.

We’re looking for a candidate who is able to build and write complex services in code and have significant experience in this area. You would hold a relevant qualification (for instance in computer science or software engineering) or have equivalent experience. 

It is necessary that you have previous experience in managing and/or coaching other developers.

Other essential skills to have for this role are as follows:

• Experience leading software development teams.
• Significant experience working in teams using agile methods and culture.
• Significant experience in understanding and balancing client, organisational, and technical needs and knowing how to balance these when setting product strategy and direction.
• Significant experience researching, prototyping, launching and scaling products and platforms from inception to live.
• Ability to build software to the highest standard, in a range of languages and frameworks.
• Ability to test software in modern ways, including automated testing.
• Knowledge of DevOps practice and culture and associated practices like continuous deployment and testing, test-driven development and pair programming.

For more in-depth information about the role, please refer to the job description.

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

In addition we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff supported by our IT infrastructure, Google Chromebooks and Google Apps, which have acted as a key enabler for collaborative and streamlined working. The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to be even more flexible in how we work and manage staff workloads, ensuring they have the correct equipment and resources to be able to maximise their talents and looking after their wellbeing.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:

• Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
• Three volunteering days per year
• Flexible and agile working arrangements
• Comprehensive learning and development programme
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Zip car scheme
• Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
• Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
• Subsidised gym membership

We pride ourselves on being a diverse, tolerant and welcoming Borough and we aim to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve. We are respectful of difference and realise the positive value of diversity in our workforce. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds and particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and disabled candidates as these groups are currently under-represented in our workforce.

We are proud to be recognised as a Disability Confident employer, and are committed to thinking differently about disability and taking action to improve how we recruit, retain and develop disabled people. We guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role.   

We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are an accredited London Living Wage Employer and this means that everyone working at the Royal Borough of Kingston, regardless of whether they are permanent employees or third-party contractors and suppliers receive the London Living Wage. The real Living Wage is higher than the government’s minimum, or National Living Wage, and is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay that is based on the actual cost of living.

The UK has introduced a new points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance.