Principal Development Manager

ASOS burst on to the scene in 2000 and hasn’t looked back. We are the UK’s number one fashion and beauty destination, and as a recent survey showed, we are the second most visited fashion website on the planet. We ship to over 190 countries and also have specific sites targeting the USA, French and German, Italian and Australian markets. With much excitement we opened our office in Sydney in January 2012 and New York in September 2012, France and Germany following soon after. This is all part of our strategy, which we call ASOS Future.

Our ambition is to be the world’s no.1 online fashion brand for 20-somethings, having set ourselves a target to reach ÂŁ1bn annual sales by 2015. Therefore it is really important to us that we continue to attract top talent across the globe to help us realise our goals.

The ASOS Way

We do things a certain way – The ASOS Way.  It’s our DNA and runs through every single thing we do here – it defines who we are, what we do and how we do it. Some things change, these don’t.

We are Passionate; we are proud to be a part of ASOS, we always give our best and we celebrate our successes.

We are Customer Obsessed; we know our customers love fashion and we understand what they want, we know our stuff inside and out, we put our customers at the heart of everything we do.

We Restlessly Innovate; we don’t stand still, we give it a go and we’re brave.

We are Collaborative and Respectful; We work together to get the job done, we grow ideas from within, we make things happen and we do the right thing.

People are the future of our business and we have really big ideas. We know we need people who can turn these ideas into reality – it’s our people that make the difference.

Your responsibilities:

The purpose of the Principal Development Manager role is to create the vision for the Development Management Competency Centre; driving the roadmap, owning the Agile playbook and being an ambassador of best practice., You will deliver thought leadership and influence across the business, whilst ensuring all competencies are aligned. This role will provide internal technical leadership, guiding and mentoring new starters and existing teams, and also play an active role in the external IT community, promoting ASOS as a technology company and benchmarking the business against recognised best practice.

Work in a matrix managed, fast paced Engineering team, owning the delivery and technical competency of the Development Management function across the department
Set and maintain development standards across IT, ensuring standards are  known, understood and adopted
Provide guidance to the Senior Development managers and Development Managers around the process and standards to apply to the development lifecycle for the solutions that are being developed, work with the  appropriate stakeholders including the business, architecture and service functions where appropriate
Create and own the Development Management roadmap, ensuring buy in and agreement at all levels of the organisation, fostering a clear understanding of their roles within it
Work with the other Principal roles to ensure the Competency Centre roadmaps are aligned
Develop and measure KPI’s for Development Managers as a discipline and make recommendations to the Senior Development managers, Continuous Improvement Manager, Programme Managers and Heads of Department for change and improvement
Define the processes that need to exist within the framework to enable quality delivery
Prioritise and support the execution of processes, and recommend tools to ensure all ASOS quality standards are met ( includes work undertaken with 3rd parties)
Play an instrumental role in our recruitment process, from working with the Senior Development Managers to prioritise recruitment requirements, to reviewing CVs and interviewing candidates
Through networking and events, look for opportunities to promote ASOS IT as an Agile recruiter
Oversee and ensure consistency of the creation of the induction programme and the on-boarding process for new Development Managers
Provide mentoring to the new starters as part of the internship programme
Input into the probationary, mid-year and end of year reviews
Working with the Senior Development Managers to develop plans against the competency vision and objectives. Ensure these plans are delivered through the teams and quality is measured
Be aware and understand the potential impact on the Development teams of any new technologies introduced. Proactively stay abreast of change and encourage the team to do the same
Support the team in the planning estimating and solution design in accordance with best practice and the Reference Architecture

The Person

ASOS are passionate about our people; they’re the future of our business, which is why we invest time and effort in recruiting the perfect match!  Our employees are passionate about ASOS, their role and the overall success of the company. We are all motivated to drive our own success and achieve individual objectives. Communication is key to any role here as our employees continually build relationships at all levels across the business. We’re fast paced, so our employees need to able to adapt to change pretty quickly and be enthused and excited about what’s around the corner for us.

Skills and experience you will need:

Experience

Transactional, high volume website experience, ideally eCommerce
Previous experience of leading multi-skilled (Software Engineering, QA, User Interface) Development / Engineering Teams to deliver the software required for technical change programmes, projects and small changes in line with business expectations
Strong software engineering background
Experience of working in an international working environment, with a good command of the English language
Significant experience of people management, including the application of performance management processes within development functions.
Able to coach and develop teams and individuals to achieve excellent results
Educated to degree level in an information technology discipline, ideally specialising in software engineering / application development
Experience of working closely with Quality Assurance & Testing to advocate and adopt development standards and support testing, user acceptance, training and knowledge sharing
Technical Leadership
Experience of working with 3rd party systems and organisations
Experience of working with an SI/Offshore partner
Experience of managing business stakeholders

Skills

Certified Scrum Master, with strong facilitation and leadership skills including proficiency in delivering standard Agile ceremonies, such as retrospectives, reviews and Scrum planning sessions
Strong knowledge of software development methodologies and practices (Agile, Scrum and Waterfall)
Proven leadership skills, including mentoring and coaching
An ability to  articulate complicated concepts in simple terms
Independent problem solving skills
An interest in new technologies and how they impact the web
An ability to work under pressure in a fast moving environment, remaining motivated and committed at all times
Organised, calm and committed to the achievement of high quality results on time, to budget and specified requirements
Excellent multi-tasking and strong communication skills
Excellent  team development, mentoring and line management skills, including leadership, coaching and performance management
Strong influencing and negotiation skills
Excellent analytical and problem solving skills
Strategic and creative thinking
Excellent business presentation and communication skills, and a diplomatic nature
Ability to provide a high level of customer service to internal users
Ability to propose trade-offs and provide risk assessment to stakeholders
Previous experience of working with high volume, mission-critical systems