The Head of Systems Integration will own the API and integration Platform technology and is accountable for the development lifecycle of these platforms, providing technical leadership and direction to internal / supplier led agile squads in the evolution of the platforms and the delivery of integration solutions in support of Business project and product demand.

This role will work with key business stakeholders to understand demand, in respect to business value and customer outcomes, and drives a unified integration strategy, aligned to architectural roadmaps, change programme and delivery approach to realise these.  The API Transformation DevOps Deliver Lead will own the API and integration Platform technology and is accountable for the development lifecycle, providing technical leadership and direction to the supplier led agile squads (and shared services), tracking and delivering to budget and achieving a low risk, repeatable, transition into service. The Delivery Lead will work in an Agile, DevSecOps Factory model.

• Develops and owns the System Integration policy, standards, and procedures both internally and for 3 rd party oversight.
• Builds and leads a practice of System Integration Engineers, ensuing the business has the right mix of skills and experience. Responsibility for the career pathways for System Integration engineers.
• Works with Product Teams, E&D colleagues, IT Architecture, 3 rd parties and Business Change colleagues to gather and manage demand across the enterprise.
• Maintains cost forecasts, develops accurate estimation tools and manages the overall delivery budget; maturing it from an initial Projects led based funding model towards managing from a central budget with defined capacity, scheduled through an empowered prioritisation forum. Proactively seeks out opportunities to aggregate project spend to deliver re-usable services and underlying capability uplift.
• Owns the internal and customer facing governance, risk management and performance reporting
• Works with the Director of E&D and peer leaders within E&D to manage central shared services provided to product and project teams such as; 3 rd party resource on-boarding, project stage-gate management and financial reporting
• Provides overall delivery leadership including day to day decision making with the supplier management team and delivery squads across multi channels
• Works in conjunction with E&D leadership & IT Architecture to deliver product road maps providing technical expertise and leadership to the IT Engineering Delivery function
• Establishes, evaluates and reports relevant agile metrics to continually drive high quality delivery
• Owns and drives the Software Configuration Management plan across multiple squads ensuring effective adoption of SCM, continuous integration and dev/ops processing within the factory
• Leads the team in a transition to continuous delivery driving automation of build, deployment and test within the integration platform
• Provides recommendations and assist in determining which feature/projects to prioritise and make trade-off between technical debt and new functionality
• Removes impediments to ease the development path – driving down cycle time from initiation to customer value
• Works with E&D, Business Change colleagues to manage the end to end delivery process; Initial Demand and sizing, through to detailed Business Requirements and the acceptance testing / handover of built and tested API solutions into broader IT delivery programmes.

• Experience in Building high performing engineering teams by mentoring coaching and developing full stack engineers
• Technical experience of the end to end SDLC including (on-premise and cloud hosting); waterfall & agile methodologies, dev/ops processes, management of solution design and development teams, automation tooling, code management and environment services
• Experience leading API engineering teams with a relentless focus on delivering business value
• Enterprise experience and knowledge of API technology and architecture
• Knowledge of modern API platforms, container and microservice architectures and best practices
• Experience of API production, service management, governance and operating models
• Management experience within a complex business environment, including leading and influencing substantial numbers of non-direct reports and multiple 3 rd party suppliers
• People Management – leadership and management skills, influencing and relationship building
• Stakeholder Management – effective management of internal and external stakeholder interests across a complex organisational structure, including partnerships
• Supplier Management – integration of suppliers in the delivery of integrated test solutions
• Risk management – understanding of the delivery risks faced by IT delivery and the controls in place to manage & mitigate these risks
• Credibility and confidence working at senior levels in the organisation, including C-suite executives