Team Lead / Development Manager - Shaping Products and Managing

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A team lead or development manager is sought by this sports focussed company to lead a team of 7 developers. They are looking for someone who has come from a hands on programming (Java, C#, Scala, Python, anything OO), understands what delivery in an agile context means and has experience of owning / delivering of business critical components.

The role is heavily involved in shaping products and delivering business driven products. As a sports focussed business the work inevitably revolves around the big sporting events of the year like Wimbledon, the Grand National and the FA Cup, and so these end up being delivery milestones and part of the job that is very rewarding is being able to see the products and changes you delivered directly impact the company's revenue. This role is very close to the money. There are tight feedback loops and long feedback loops.

In summary there are 4 elements to this role:

1 TECHNIC­AL HERITAGE - need to have a development background and to have developed something technically challenging. They face a lot of issues around scaling

2 AGILE DELIVERY (CONTINUOUS) - understand how delivery works in a lean, continuous delivery methodology

3 LINE MANAGEMENT - line management of 7 developers

4 COMPONENT OWNERSHIP - complete ownership of this business critical component

- must be tech strong enough to answer questions and understand what it takes to do a job. But not necessarily know the answers.

- meetings with devops, support, product managers, senior management etc

- its a very technical role, but it is a hands off role (no code reviews), not because they are against it, but because you won't have time

EXAMPLE DAY:

- meeting stakeholders

- start week off with a review of the last week

- design review with architect

- key account customer to understand their needs

- planning session

They don't ask a single language specific question in the interview

This role could be described as a "Technical Project Manager", but as they are agile they don't have any "projects" and this is a delivery, technical line management role, so a PM title is not appropriate.

This role is sitting with the development team and the product managers.

This role can have quite quick product turn around, so it would be advantageous if candidates have experience of working out the merits of a new ideas and work out whether it's a good idea to go with. Someone who can understand all of the dimensions. So for instance a team member comes into the office on Monday morning and says "let's go live for this product idea for Wimbledon in a very short space of time" and its up to the delivery manager to determine whether they want to go ahead.

The delivery managers work together very collaboratively, and all are happy to challenge each other or to ask why they are doing something. Its a close and friendly team because they inevitably end up working closely together. I had the impression that overall it was a very happy team, with lots of jokes and banter.

The delivery managers also end up running other teams and through that get a wider knowledge of the platform and the business, and that is a good element to the role. However usually you will only have one team of 7 developers and you really get to know your team and the product.

They are looking for people with an interest in learning, and people who may work in an environment that is not very innovative but who are trying to effect change nonetheless. Someone who is aware of the ramifications of the commercial environment that they are working in. They look for people who are happy to take a bit of a risk.

This is like a front office environment. It is very, very business aligned, with lots of autonomy and very little prescriptive orders from above about how you should go about delivering. In that sense this role is quite stakeholder driven. There is a fast pace of change.

Sells on this team / role:

- The past two delivery managers of this team have been promoted after 18 months in the role.

- This is a brilliant place to learn all about the business.

- This team is what drives the rest of the business.

AREAS WHERE CANDIDATES HAVE FALLEN DOWN

- Not enough technical background and wouldn't admit it

- Not a good cultural fit