Engineering Team Leader

Purpose As an Engineering Team Leader, you will manage a team of individual contributors mostly Engineers, and will be responsible for the products and services they provide. You will take care of the performance and well-being of the team members, keeping them aligned and giving them sufficient autonomy to do their work. You will ensure that the products and services are delivered with the expected level of quality, fulfilling the expectations created in the amount of time agreed, in partnership with the Product Manager. You will typically report to an Engineering Manager (EM). Department The fulfillment department is concentrated on creating Warehouse Management Systems that power In-Store and Automated Warehouses (CFC - Customer Fulfilment Centers), and building software that enables accurate and efficient picking, packing, and dispatching of customer orders at scale. Key Responsibilities: Accountable for all aspects of the products and/or services the team is delivering, including appropriate timeliness and quality. Leadership: Work with the team to put effective and sustainable processes in place, including ways to ensure innovation, experimentation and continuous improvement. Partner with Product on prioritisation, forward planning, forecasting, tracking and progress reporting. Inspire the other team members and be someone who is respected by the team. Work actively to build good relationships and trust between the team and other stakeholders, embedding a 'one Ocado' approach. Manage upwards effectively, making sure your Engineering Manager and Head of Engineering are informed of progress, celebrating team successes and making key risks visible. Set clear goals and expectations for people in the team, providing timely feedback to support their development and improving their performance. Set goals at a team level that cascade from the department / stream goals. Coach team members and create a healthy environment that facilitates high-performing teams and is aligned with Ocado Values and Ocado Technology Principles. Establish a respectful and trusted working relationship with your Product counterpart to allow effective decision making, and facilitate escalations from the team. Represent the team in forums (operational meetings, post mortems, etc.) with the support of Team Members when appropriate. Design for Future: Lead the discovery phase along with Product, involving the right people at the right time. Responsible for the team following Ocado Technology engineering principles, technical and departmental standards, and using standard tooling where appropriate e.g. libraries, languages, integrations, provided services, existing systems, .... Participate in the creation and communication of the team mission, purpose and strategy. Help the team to create appropriate ways of working, agreed and explicit, along with the suitable processes aligned with Lean, Agile and Systems Engineering principles, with appropriate metrics in place. Make sure the right balance between feature delivery and technical/architectural innovation happens in the team. Deliver for Today: Help the team resolve difficult engineering problems through effective facilitation. Focus on delivering value on time. Know how to make an economic judgement to balance technical excellence with delivery speed. Look ahead to identify risks as soon as possible (technical and organisational) and put in place mitigation plans, escalating when necessary. Make sure that technical decisions are made in a timely manner and considering the constraints, standards and recommendations. Make sure there is clarity in the area around technical strategy and levels of technical delegation and autonomy. Suggest and implement improvements to identify and reduce waste in our ways of working, understanding cost and opportunity implications. Comprehend the types of and ways to test, and guide the team to validate the product in short feedback loops. Execute with Quality: Make sure that the team's products and services pursue technical excellence (with the economic constraints taken into account), with appropriate quality and security built-in. Make sure that the right cadences are in place to update stakeholders, Product, the EM or other teams about the delivery. Make sure the products have appropriate observability. Put in place sustainable and effective processes to support your team's products and services. Key Attributes You lead and role model the Ocado values and Ocado Technology Principles daily. You are highly organised and able to plan, manage, track and deliver effectively. You lead and manage others effectively, coaching and giving feedback to support development. You have sufficient knowledge of the technology used in your team and are capable of modelling and communicating the design: data, interactions, APIs, etc. You are assertive but diplomatic and have a bias for action, collaboration and optimism. You understand Lean and Agile principles and practices and know when and how to use them. You know how to apply self-organisation, delegation and decentralised decision-making, and are conscious about applying the right combination of autonomy and alignment. You cultivate a strong sense of ownership. You know how to gather metrics to make better-informed decisions. You are a respected leader that people want to follow. Key Experience: Practical and recent experience as an individual contributor in specified engineering specialities used in the team such as: Java, Microservices, API integration related knowledge. Good knowledge of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), Security and Quality. Mentoring or managing others effectively and supporting development. Ability to lead and direct your own and others' work to achieve objectives. Benefits Permanent Contract Multi-Sport Card Medical Insurance Life assurance Lunch Vouchers Training and Development opportunities Ocado is an equal opportunities employer and as such makes every effort to ensure that all potential employees are treated fairly and equally, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, marital status, race, color, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, age, disability or union membership status. #LI-HYBRID #LI-OT #LI-OC1