JOB TITLE: Software Development Manager
JOB TYPE: Full time
DIVISON: Pearson Assessment Services
LOCATION: Rotherham, Manchester, or London
About Pearson: Our purpose at Pearson is to help everyone achieve their potential through learning. At the heart of this is a commitment to sustainable practices and meaningful, measurable outcomes. We are the world’s leading learning company. Our ability to help people learn is built on our ability to grow with and adapt to a constantly evolving market. Our 18,000+ employees around the world in 70 countries in which we operate are dedicated to doing just that: creating the digital-first, accessible and sustainable learning resources that prepare tens of millions of people each year for a lifetime of learning.
About Pearson Assessment Services: The Pearson Assessment Services (PAS) team provides assessment services to the UK and international assessment markets, supporting government education departments with project management, operational delivery and technical solutions. We are part of Pearson School Qualifications which supports the curriculum, qualifications, and assessments for students in the UK and globally, delivering exams to over million students in over 80 countries annually and operating as a centre of excellence in qualifications and assessment.
About the job: The position is for a Development Manager to recruit and lead a PHP Laravel/ team working on large scale assessment delivery application-based systems in AWS. Currently we are in the middle of a large programme to build a new service to deliver a large assessment contract that will process millions of exams a year. The successful candidate will manage their own team of PHP Laravel/ developers located in multiple locations.
About you: We expect you to have significant experience as a full-stack developer. You’ll have strong leadership and management skills with experience of managing agile delivery teams that develop solutions at pace to provide real end user benefits. You will be a champion of Agile project delivery. You’ll also have experience of recruiting developers & building strong teams that deliver clean and efficient code.
Key Skills & Experience
1. Strong skills in PHP Laravel/
2. Gathering, evaluating, and prioritizing requests for product changes, enhancements, and new features
3. Evaluating recent technologies that may be incorporated into future releases of the product.
4. Participating in all product activities related to release and iteration planning, to ensure that the team has a clear understanding of the goals and can complete development on schedule.
5. Tracking product roadmap and project issues to completion
6. Providing technical guidance to the development team
7. Working with senior leadership team to execute long term technology strategy
8. Ensuring that the development team successfully delivers applications to production and provides post deployment support as required
9. Applying best practices for chosen development platform
10. Understand modern application architectures and how they can be applied, like Microservice / Service Oriented Architectures
11. Ensuring that overall software architecture guidance in terms of best practice is followed by the team
12. Recruitment of developers
13. Managing training requirements for teams to ensure skills are kept up in line with Pearson’s technology strategy
14. Mentor and coach team members to help them reach their full potential and advance their careers.
15. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive product development and delivery.
16. Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to manage complex projects.
17. Excellent communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.
18. Ability to manage multiple projects during the same time effectively, and efficiently.
19. Ability to identify and document business processes and requirements.
Desirable Skills & Experience
20. PHP Laravel/
21. Docker and containers
22. Designing, developing, and deploying cloud applications
23. Terraform
24. Experience partnering with program management teams.
25. Strong Agile Scrum project management experience
26. 5+ years of experience managing engineering teams.
27. Experience managing multiple projects simultaneously.
28. Applying development methodologies like TDD, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code
Pearson’s Benefits:
29. 25 Days annual leave (increasing by 1 day with every year of continuous service up to 30 days); annual leave trading, +/- 5 days.
30. Annual Bonus
31. Private Pension plan scheme where we pay in double what you contribute, up to 16% depending on your age.
32. Life, private medical and dental care insurance options, plus free eye tests
33. Stock/share purchase options
34. Maternity, paternity, and family care leave as well as flexible working policies.
35. An employee wellbeing assistance programme
36. Cycle to work program, volunteering days, gym membership concessions in selected office locations, along with retail and leisure discounts.
Location: The role is aligned to our Manchester, Rotherham, or London offices. Our Rotherham office is located at Junction 1 of the M18. All our roles are hybrid working; our current policy requires our team to visit their base office no more than once a week, and with the possibility of occasional business travel to other Pearson sites. Candidates must be a suitable commute from their base office as our office presence policy may change to require more frequent presence in 2024.
Diversity: At Pearson we value the power of an inclusive culture and a strong sense of belonging. We promote a culture wheredifferences are embraced as strengths and opportunities are equal and accessible.
How to apply: Thank you for your interest in applying for a role at Pearson. Please submit an updated CV and cover letter (optional) in English. If you have any additional questions or require further information, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
We look forward to receiving your application - Talent Acquisition Team
What to expect from Pearson
Did you know Pearson is one of the 10 most innovative education companies of 2022?
At Pearson, we add life to a lifetime of learning so everyone can realize the life they imagine. We do this by creating vibrant and enriching learning experiences designed for real-life impact. We are on a journey to be 100 percent digital to meet the changing needs of the global population by developing a new strategy with ambitious targets. To deliver on our strategic vision, we have five business divisions that are the foundation for the long-term growth of the company: Assessment & Qualifications, Virtual Learning, English Language Learning, Workforce Skills and Higher Education. Alongside these, we have our corporate divisions: Digital & Technology, Finance, Global Corporate Marketing & Communications, Human Resources, Legal, Strategy and Direct to Consumer. Learn more at
We value the power of an inclusive culture and also a strong sense of belonging. We promote a culture where differences are embraced, opportunities are accessible, consideration and respect are the norm and all individuals are supported in reaching their full potential. Through our talent, we believe that diversity, equity and inclusion make us a more innovative and vibrant place to work. People are at the center, and we are committed to building a workplace where talent can learn, grow and thrive.