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Head of Engineering

Hybrid /London
£105k - £120k

Our mission and vision

We’re all about making people’s lives easier, no matter how familiar they are with technology. That's why we’re on a mission to build healthcare that’s simple and accessible for everyone.

And it’s all part of a bigger plan. Our vision is to create a world where people are empowered to be healthier. To get there, we’ll need help – your help!

Our story

Beginning life at a kitchen table in 2015, LloydsDirect was originally a start-up called Echo. Since then we’ve grown to a team of over 200 people, and become part of the LloydsPharmacy family.

Today, over half a million people use our app to manage their NHS prescriptions, and we’re rated as ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot. Despite our growth, we’ve remained mindful of our impact on people and the planet. In 2022 we became a certified B Corp, meaning we’re part of a global community dedicated to making business a force for good.

Our culture

True to our start-up roots, LloydsDirect has a supportive, entrepreneurial culture. We move fast, challenge the status quo, and always try to do the right thing.

We’re also committed to creating a space where we all belong. A space where we’re free to grow and showcase our talents. A big part of this is celebrating diversity and equality. We’re dedicated to creating opportunities and reducing barriers for everyone. So we work hard to remove any discrimination or bias from our recruitment and selection processes. And we do the same with our pay, performance management and promotions.

To that end, we encourage applications from women, people from the LGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities, and people from minoritised ethnic groups.

What you’ll do as a Head Of Engineering

The Head of Engineering is a key leadership role at LloydsDirect and you will be responsible for the delivery of company OKRs as well as the Technology initiatives, innovation, performance and standards that form a crucial part of meeting those OKRs.

A key responsibility will be to lead a high performing Engineering team and to ensure that they are as empowered and effective as possible. This role is primarily about providing direction and focus; coaching and communication; and coordination. Achieved through motivating, mentoring, managing and encouraging two-way feedback for your team.

You’ll help us reach our OKRs and strategy by supporting team members when they are thinking about their quarterly/bi-annual initiatives, to form patient- centric plans, in order to reach the goals we have and provide visibility to everyone on how what they are doing brings us closer to this vision. Culture is key. You'll act as a role model, offering inspirational leadership in line with our Company values - Positive, Thoughtful and Inventive

It’s our experience that the best work is achieved by small, focused, cross-functional teams. Our product teams are made up of four engineers, a tech lead manager, a product manager, a product designer and a data analyst — with support from user researchers and content designers.

Reporting into the Technology Director, the Head of Engineering will be responsible for the management of a team of (currently) three talented Tech Lead Managers who currently look after thirteen software engineers ranging from mid to principal level. You will also be part of a wider Senior Leadership Team (SLT) who you will be expected to build relationships with and collaborate regularly.

We develop and operate services based on a microservice architecture, hosted in GCP and AWS, and built with Go, Protobuf, gRPC, GraphQL, Postgres and BigQuery. Our patient-facing apps and internal tools are built with Typescript, React and React Native.

While you will have flexibility in deciding to work on-site or remotely, you should expect to work one day a week on average on-site at either our Shoreditch office or our Pharmacy in Perivale.

Your key roles & responsibilities will be:

• Working closely with the Heads of Data, Product and User Research as part of the Technology Leadership Team
• Coaching the Tech Leads to successfully translate business strategy into product delivery within their respective product teams
• Fostering a positive culture of collaboration and learning throughout the Engineering discipline and the Technology department
• Championing software engineering as a discipline within the business
• Helping shape LloydsDirect’s engineering practices and technology strategy

This role is for you if

• You value thoughtful input into strategy and the Technology team’s direction for enhancing existing products or developing new products
• You are passionate about creating an inclusive environment which will deliver enduring success through culture creation focused on high performing self-managed teams

• You’re excited by the idea of working on a product that helps make people’s lives better

• You are interested in taking on more strategic challenges over the day to day engineering challenges; you derive a sense of achievement from the success of your team

Requirements

• Excellent people management; able to manage equally effectively in times of adversity or under pressure
• Proven ability to identify and make trade-offs between technical considerations and business requirements
• You collaborate effectively with other heads of the business outside of Engineering
• Strong communication and engagement skills with the ability to influence diverse stakeholders
• Passion for building a great culture and motivating engineers to perform at their best; we want our engineers to always be learning, growing and helping each other
• Prior experience in our tech stack, distributed systems and microservices architecture is a plus but not required

Benefits

LloydsDirect is a fantastic place to work with a mission that really makes a difference. Along with a competitive salary, our people benefit from:

• 28 days of annual leave, with the opportunity to buy or sell up to 5 days holiday each year
• £250 budget for home office equipment
• £500 per year learning and development allowance
• £350 per year physical wellbeing allowance to spend on gym membership, dance classes, etc.
• enhanced maternity pay (13 weeks) and paternity pay (6 weeks)
• cycle to work scheme
• private dental insurance
• life assurance
• dog-friendly office (Shoreditch only)
• summer and Christmas parties
• regular online and in-person socials
• 3 paid volunteer days per year
• support from our very own trained Mental Health First Aiders

• We are open to flexible working here at LloydsDirect, for example part-time working and compressed hours. Whatever your preference, we’ll do our best to make it
  

Our interview process

We know that applying for a new job takes effort, and we appreciate every application we receive. However, as we receive a large number of CVs and portfolios, we’re unable to respond to all applicants.

If you have an individual need for an adjustment to our process, please let us know so we can learn about how we can best support you and make any adjustments to the interview process.