Head of Software Development

at  Open GI Ltd

Open GI is a leading software development company and a trusted partner to the general insurance industry. Based across the UK and Europe, our support and development services make us a truly diverse organization that offers a range of IT solutions to insurance brokers, insurers, and managing general agents.
It is our mission to be both the Technology Partner and Employer of Choice to the UK General Insurance market. Our people are placed at the heart of this and diversity, equality and inclusion are central to everything we do.
We know the key to achieving success is to enable a positive, inclusive, and collaborative working culture, and, as part of our commitment, we have signed up for a number of pledges and programmes designed to support and nurture our people. No matter where you sit or which team you are a part of, we want you to know that you contribute in helping us to shape where the company will be in the future. We would love for each employee to be able to talk with pride about our company and, most importantly, consider Open GI to be an inclusive, fun and fulfilling place to work.

EXPERIENCE

• Management of multiple software development teams building software products for a vertical market (general insurance/financial services is preferable but not essential)
• Working with cloud-based (SAAS) software products using modern technologies
• Creating partnerships across the organisation, particularly with Product Management
• Enabling continuous product improvement and demonstrable benefits to customers
• Direct interaction with customers, learning from their experiences to improve our software development processes
• Leveraging technology and best practice to continuously improve performance
• Using data and metrics to drive continuous improvement

SKILLS

• Agile techniques such as Paired Programming, Test Driven Development
• Leveraging a DevOps methodology (use of CI/CD particularly advantageous)
• Presenting at a senior level within an organisation. Understands the need for organisational buy-in, but at the same time proactive and willing to make bold/tough decisions

MISSION AND VALUES

Our mission is to be both the Technology Partner and Employer of choice for the UK General Insurance Market. Our values are central to this vision, as they represent how we collaborate to continually deliver for our customers:

• Accountability: We own our actions and shape our success on the results we deliver
• Innovation: We tackle challenges with fresh thinking and bold ideas
• Teamwork: We work together, recognising we can’t do this without each other
• Trust: We build trust on integrity, transparency and respect

We are looking for an individual who embraces our values in their actions, decisions, communications and processes to inspire positivity and, ultimately, exceptional performance.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• High Performance - Ensure backlog items are delivered quickly and effectively through small slices of value, to a high level of quality. Continuous improvement will play a key role in increasing levels of performance with a constant drive to do things better.
• Workforce planning - Organise, plan, and utilise our resources to deliver our roadmap in the most effective manner. Manage costs in accordance with budgets.
• Quality - Drive quality with best practice throughout the product lifecycle to ensure re-work, delays, system downtime and customer disruption are kept to a minimum. Leverage technology to maximise quality and efficiency wherever possible.
• Delivery Planning - Help customers, internal stakeholders and Open GI teams to plan through provision of schedules, plans and estimated timescales. Ensure strong tracking and governance of delivery schedules to meet expectations and keep stakeholders informed.
• Stakeholder management - Clear reporting of progress, risks, issues and opportunities via robust data and metrics. Set appropriate expectations together with clear communication of plans. Demonstrate senior ownership and accountability for delivery for your software teams, together with certain cross-team initiatives. Proactively seek support where required, gather feedback and learn from experiences.
• Cross team working - Build and enhance key partnerships across other Open GI teams. A particularly strong relationship will be built between Technology and Product Management ensuring alignment on development plans and priorities. Manage dependencies with other teams to ensure effective holistic solutions are provided.
• People management - We employ a matrix management model with remuneration and career development run within Chapters. Drive and support the personal development of your people (remuneration, career and skills progression) both in and outside of our Chapters, of which you will head our delivery areas.