Development Practice Lead

**Purpose of the Job**:
As a recognized software engineering authority with inspirational leadership capability, the Development Practice Lead (Software Engineering) will lead and drive software engineering practices across all our development teams. You will implement a process of continuous improvement of our software engineering practices that results in a world class practice aligned to international standards.

**Job Objectives**:
Lead the definition and continuous improvement of the software engineering practice covering Standards, Best Practices, Tooling, Skills, Knowledge Sharing, etc.

Keep abreast of new and evolving software engineering frameworks, methodologies and strategies and evaluate international Software Engineering trends on a regular basis for adoption with the Shoprite group.

Perform Quality Assurance on work produced by members of the Software Engineering practice to highlight and address deviations from the defined practices and company standards

Facilitate knowledge sharing between and across the various practices to nurture best practice and help Shoprite get to the next level of SDLC excellence.

Maintain a well-formed and current job framework for Programmers and Software Engineers that enables long term career growth for practice members

Maintain a catalogue of training and applicable certifications available to practice members to enable formal growth of knowledge and skills.

**Qualifications**:
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems or a related field, or equivalent work experience or 3-year tertiary qualification in a relevant discipline, e.g. computer science or engineering or computer science related technical certification with 2+ years’ proven people management experience.

**Experience**:
Essential:
10+ years of working experience within the IT industry.

5+ years of Experience in main stream software engineering languages

3+ years of Experience in Cloud Services (Azure, AWS, Google).

2+ years of Experience with recruiting talented team members.

Desirable:
2+ years of Experience with Agile software development life-cycle practices.

2+ years of Experience with creating career development paths and managing the career development of individuals.

2+ years of Experience in the Identification and formulation of Language, Standard, Artifacts, Tools, and Processes.

2+ years of Excellent technical development and design skills with the ability to be able to mentor others to improve their skills. Desirable

**Knowledge and Skills**:
Essential:

- In-depth knowledge of the Systems Development Life Cycle
- Advanced influencing, interpersonal and communication skills are required to contract with, engage and influence senior leaders and technical specialists, as well as coordinate complex initiatives across a number of teams.
- Proven ability to establish and manage relationships with various individuals at differing levels of the business. These include, but are not limited to senior leaders, technical specialists, and support staff.
- Ability to build effective relationships and build a strong and positive team.
- Developed people management skills that are critical to service a number of cross-functional needs, including people with strong academic backgrounds and technical skills.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and logical skills with attention to detail.
- Excellent team-working, interpersonal skills.
- Delivery of compelling presentations to all levels of stakeholders and excellent communication and relationship-building skills.
- Develop proposals and excellent written communication & presentation skills.
- Excellent organization and facilitation skills.
- Strong conflict management skills.
- API integration (on-premise and cloud).
- Ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously.
- Focused on doing things correctly rather than quickly.

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