The Role

The Head of Software Engineering (HoE) position will lead the delivery of software development for a sub-domain operating within the SEEK APAC structure with APAC focused priorities. This role will lead large agile product and/or platform engineering teams (leading managers, engineers & business analysts) helping build APAC engineering capabilities. Alongside your key partners, who may include Product, Design, Security, Architecture etc, you will lead the delivery of OKRs for your sub-domain ensuring you facilitate fast execution with agreed quality and timely decision-making removing blockers to progress. This will involve building the models of collaboration and ongoing experimentation & development that best leverage SEEK’s people, and therefore allow us to move faster and solve more problems for candidates and hirers across the globe.

This position is a senior technology leadership role focused on people, delivery, and technology leadership. As a senior technology leader, you will be responsible for the growth, capability, and productivity of engineering teams under your leadership and ultimately accountable for the product, platforms, systems and/or services your teams build, deliver, and maintain within your sub-domain.

The following are key responsibilities that the position will be accountable for on a day-to-day basis.

People

• Direct line management. Accountable for managing individual performance and professional growth, including personal development across both technical and non-technical aspects. Grow leadership capabilities via coaching and mentoring
• Team Leadership. Lead and inspire world class software engineering teams, accountable for team performance and deliverables under your leadership
• Create and maintain an environment that enables robust team cultures under your leadership that embrace diversity, delivery, ownership, teamwork, learning and continuous improvement
• Advocacy for wellbeing by fostering safety, inclusivity, fun, sustainability, and diversity of thought within your team(s)
• Ownership for hiring of team members in line with SEEK’s hiring process and ensuring their onboarding is effectively supported to deliver success
• Lead others through change, including leaders, whilst applying SEEK’s change principles to deliver effective organisational change management

Delivery

• Lead and inspire cross-functional and diverse software development teams to deliver exceptional customer outcomes against agreed OKR’s with urgency, quality and at scale
• Ensure OKR’s are delivered in alignment with the organisation’s strategy and desired product & architectural direction
• Provide oversight and sponsor communication with your broad partner groups including Leadership Team’s, steering committees, and executives to ensure that system / service / platform health, ongoing development and any risks/issues are visible and communicated clearly and in a timely manner.
• Build a delivery culture of speed and excellence, championing effective agile practices and solutions to deliver greater value to customers quickly and efficiently
• Drive continuous improvement and continuous delivery culture through effective collaboration, regular retros and knowledge sharing across SEEK
• Lead, inspire and provide oversight for multiple teams within your sub domain and create effective systems to support their deliverables
• Support Technology Leadership teams: collaborating closely with Engineering Directors to align and execute on common development opportunities across AP&A
• Lead the setting and alignment of Team, Product, Service or Platform OKRs within your sub-domain, connecting strategy to delivery in partnership with Partners and Stakeholders
• Have a deep understanding of the customers in your sub-domain, putting their needs at the centre of all engineering development, guiding priorities based on where impact can be most significant

Technology

• Lead the design and execution of the technical roadmap to communicate and guide the evolution of services /systems / platforms within your sub-domain
• Ensure commonalities and difference in technology direction are surfaced and understood, finding ways to maximise learning, amplify impact and reduce duplication by sharing knowledge, talent, and code
• Help drive innovation through transformational change to technology architecture, practices, and development with a view to increase business agility and respond to complexity
• Ensure services /systems / platforms your team(s) are responsible for are fit for purpose, well architected and follow current SEEK development practices
• Ensure your team(s) maintain service / system / platform health in accordance with security, performance, availability, maintainability, deployability and efficiency measures.
• Create effective systems and practices that support exceptional coaching and leadership to grow technical capabilities within your leaders, and their subsequent team members
• Custodianship for the systems we build or buy, within your teams’ influence. Ensuring systems under your influence serve their intended purpose whilst being performant (Customer Experience), well run and maintained (Operations), suit the larger eco-system (Architecture), are secure (Security) and cost efficient (Cost).
• It is required all HOE’s will be accountable for any commercial management within their sub domain, including but not limited to; operating budgets (CAPEX/OPEX), all financial aspects of project or team costs, vendor management and contract negotiations as required.

So, what we are looking for?

People

People Management

• Demonstrated line management experience (including experience leading managers), effectively coaching and mentoring team members to grow their careers

Team Management

• Ability to build, organise and lead complex teams within a portfolio, and influence senior leaders across large scale, diverse and deeply technical product environments
• Demonstrable experience and expertise in building safe, inclusive, and diverse teams

Recruitment & Onboarding

• Strong experience recruiting and onboarding technology leadership, software engineering and non-technical software delivery roles

Change Management

• Experience leading teams through ‘new’ and ‘uncertain’ environments, applying change principles to deliver effective team / organisational change management, while maintaining strong stakeholder relations

Delivery

Stakeholder Management

• Highly developed stakeholder management and communication skills to effectively deliver and report on ongoing development or project success

Delivery Practices

• Broad knowledge and experience applying agile frameworks and lean thinking to deliver ‘best in class’ software development outcomes
• Strong experience leading team environments which support agile and continuous delivery, identifying potential for technical, delivery, business, and process improvements

Prioritisation & Objectives

• Significant experience partnering with Product Management and / or Strategy setting, aligning, and communicating team OKR’s (or equivalent goal setting framework)
• Experience working with Product leaders to prioritise and execute on the technical roadmaps with a focus on the right long-term outcomes

Project & Programme Management

• Demonstrated ability to quickly break down a problem and then make or influence decisions supported by key data points whilst considering the balance of opposing business, end user and technical priorities
• Strong ability to analyse and present data to support product & delivery decisions as required

Commercial

• Commercial experience operating a budget (CAPEX/OPEX), OR at least strong understanding of financial aspects that contribute to project or team costs if required

Technology

Security

• Strong experience leading teams that have built highly reliable and scalable products and codebases that are secure (OWASP), resilient, cost effective whilst easy to build, release and maintain

Operations Health

• Prior experience being accountable for the development & maintenance of a service / system / platform’s health in accordance with security, performance, availability, deployability and efficiency measures

Technical Practices

• Exceptional software Engineering/ Quality Assurance / Architecture/ Practices and or Delivery background, with a consistent record of building technology excellence & capabilities within large scale teams and organisations
• Sound experience in growing technical capabilities of team members and a strong understanding of how to apply ‘growth frameworks’ in the context of a personal development plan, if applicable

Technical Strategy

• Strong experience partnering with Engineering & Architecture leaders in striving for technical excellence to build a viable long-term code base, whilst balancing and articulating the right technical solutions for the organisation’s immediate needs

Other Qualifications, Skills, Attributes and Experience

• Behaviours demonstrate strong alignment to SEEK’s attributes, beliefs, and culture
• Prior experience working in online marketplace businesses would be considered ideal
• Prior experience working in a global context with companies recognised as adopting world class software development / engineering / delivery practices, would be highly regarded
• Experience leading remote teams in a multi-country / location or matrixed environment would be desirable
• Familiarity with different culture norms and practises, particularly within Asia would be highly desirable
• Tertiary qualifications in a relevant discipline would be ideal
• Prior experience in a leadership role in one of the following technology areas is required:
• Delivery / Engineering Management,
• Software Development / Engineering / Data Engineering / Software Architecture / Quality Assurance
• IT Service Management or IT Business Analysis / Iteration Management
• Data Science, Ontology or Optimisation

The Team

At SEEK, our teams are typically split into cross-functional, multi-disciplinary squads that work within an APAC matrix organisational structure. You will have accountability for your teams and direct line management responsibility for team roles, including, but not limited to:

• Engineering Managers
• Software Developers / Engineers of multiple levels
• Data Engineers & Platform Engineers of multiple levels
• Business Analysts, Agile Delivery Leads, and Iteration Managers of multiple lev

You could partner with:

• Heads of Engineering
• Heads of Product and Product Managers
• Business Analysts & Practice Leads
• UX, Visual Designers, and Digital Analysts (SEO)
• Data Scientists, Ontologists & Optimisation Analysts
• Other teams/functions at SEEK that include Go-to-Market, Security, Architecture, AIPS, Data Services, APAC Practices and other Engineering Teams in Hirer, Candidate and Platform domains across APAC.

Additional Information

At SEEK, the health and safety of our people is our highest priority. For this reason, SEEK has introduced a policy requiring all employees and visitors to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 within our offices, unless a formal medical exemption applies. In addition, all employees attending in-person work related meetings or events outside the office will also need to be fully vaccinated. We have chosen to share this information early in our hiring process, so that candidates can make an informed choice. On this basis, as part of the application process you will be asked to confirm that you have read and understood this policy, and would like to continue with the hiring process.  Further details about this policy will be shared during the hiring process, as required.

• Passion: we are passionate about SEEK, our purpose, our customers and our community
• Team: we care about each other and collaborate to achieve together
• Delivery: we execute with excellence and achieve great results
• Future: we think and act for the long term