Reporting to
Head of Technology (C6)
In a nutshell
In Sainsbury's Tech we build the technology which powers the UK's number 1 multi-channel, multi-brand retailer.
The role of the Technology Manager is central to the business-critical transformation of Technology delivery and ultimately achieving Sainsbury’s business strategy. Sainsbury’s Tech has a complex resourcing model, working within a matrix team structure, including internal and external teams, both on and off shore, and strong partnering with external Tech organisations e.g. Accenture, TCS, etc. Reporting through to a Head of Technology, the Technology Manager works at the heart of this operating model.
The Technology Manager has the responsibility to assure the technology service and delivery provision for their tower, as an example, Connectivity has over 36 outsourced colleagues and a shared team, through this external partnering model. The role is responsible for the performance of their external partners managing the services provided by the Engineering and BAU (business as usual) teams, and the finances associated with their tower. The role business partners at a senior level with C6 and SM grades across the business.
The Technology Manager will have experience in agile delivery management, resource and capacity management (both of internal teams and commissioning external resources and suppliers) to build skills and capacity, where needed. They will be a leading force driving forward and delivering changes and enhancements to products at pace.
The Technology Manager will support ensuring that we have, fit for purpose, secure, efficient and innovative infrastructure and applications to support the needs of the organisation and our customers. They will be responsible for the technical assurance of business outcomes, responsibilities and outsourced platforms and services, always ensuring we maximise value for money in development, contracts, services and service management.
The Technology Manager will drive ways of working in our technical processes, improving the quality of our technical solutions and ensuring we can deliver value early and often.
What you need to do
Technology Strategy
Contribute to the Service Strategies for their respective products/functional areas, working closely with relevant Engineering Teams
Work with Product Managers to ensure delivery of services that meet customer requirements
Ensure products are delivered in accordance with the Sainsbury's Tech Operating framework and technology principles, and evolve these in line with requirements and learnings
Input into the overall roadmap of solutions, ensuring they fit with the business strategy and agenda and that all have a clear and appropriate action plan
Leadership
Drive a culture of personal accountability and ownership, not only for their own contribution, but also the contribution across external Partner Engineering teams.
Coach others to help them understand the rationale for a technical approach, surfacing and dealing with ambiguity and conflicting demands; escalate where appropriate to resolve prioritisation conflicts
Build collaborative relationships with stakeholders, service providers, suppliers, and wider Sainsbury's Tech colleagues to ensure that service meets the required standards
Ability to operate and lead without manager guidance, through interpreting principles and operating standards and judgement to do what is best for the division
Engage communication at all levels, influencing, and partnering with teams to maintain and evolve a strong service mindset
Role model behaviour in the ability to work collaboratively by engaging with internal and external teams to optimise service offerings and performance
Influence brilliantly through timely communication of relevant information up to Divisional Director level, translating complex/technical issues to meet the demands of their audience
Be comfortable at making decisions with ambiguous or patchy information and in the absence of clear guidelines and frameworks.
Financial Accountability
Support Procurement and Supplier Management on the supplier selection processes where products require significant third-party involvement, ultimately becoming responsible for establishing and managing the ongoing relationship with the supplier selected; ensure Partner Engineering team are aware of and deliver against their obligations to third parties, intervening and mitigating potential issues
Responsible for the budgeting and finance of both change and run activities associated with their tower.
Focus on opportunities to drive down cost through effective management of contracts within managed services and 3rd party contracts.
Technical Assurance
Work alongside product, engineering and 3rd party suppliers identify key risks and issues early, building a sensible approach to mitigation, securing support of stakeholders as and where necessary
Be a key point of contact for Engineering, BAU, 3rd party managed solutions and vendors
Comfortable working with technical detail, when needed, knows the technical landscape and able to understand and describe technical choices and trade-offs to different stakeholders in and outside Tech
Able to work at a conceptual level whilst also being prepared to get into the technical and commercial specifics
Delivery Assurance
Define and culturally embed a methodology for delivering high quality service across their relevant domain
Use sound judgement, focusing on the most critical/impactful activities and making best use of available resources
Service and Risk Management
Responsible for the assurance of the day to day running of services within their CTO (Chief Technology Officer) domain and associated operation activities including providing support for Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and Availability and Capacity Management
Responsible for ensuring high quality service provision, meeting agreed requirements of the engineering teams and business stakeholders through various forums
Responsible for ensuring regular Service Reviews with third party suppliers and driving the outputs of the actions.
Support the Service Transition process and tasks for new solutions including Knowledge Article generation
Responsible for ensuring all Operational Risks are raised, tracked and reviewed in collaboration with our Partners in the ITSM tool
Attend when required post implementation reviews to drive a culture of continuous improvement, ensuring the learning is fed through the wider Tech approach to delivery
Collaborate with the product and engineering teams to ensure delivery of service that meet customer requirements
Be aware of the possibility of change and be able to embrace change at pace
Support the internal and 3rd party teams to manage risks, ambiguity and changing business priorities to deliver overall business benefit
What you need to know and show
In-depth experience of working with large-scale third-party technology suppliers in complex, large scale organisations
In-depth knowledge of service management in the context of agile and iterative in-house development, as well as more traditional waterfall programme delivery
Experience of service management, including an understanding and experience of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) Service Management framework
A broad knowledge and understanding of technology concepts, with proven experience of successfully managing and maintaining services.
Experience of demonstrating strong commercial acumen
Experience of identifying continuous improvement through innovation or service improvements
Proven track record of strong leadership and ability to demonstrate these inside and outside of our organisation.
Ability to coach others to make the right ‘customer’ decision.
Understanding process management and controls.
Excellent Customer Service: coaching others to make customer-oriented decisions and shares great stories of exceptional customer service.
Ability to implement processes that are logical and understood by a broad audience.
Ability to work collaboratively to support the long-term wider business agenda.
Adaptable approach to delivering service & value at pace.
Proactive in owning workload and managing multiple delivery and service demands in parallel.
Show initiative to implement new ideas whilst being able to take an objective view on what is realistically possible.
Communicating and influencing, including managing messages when presenting to stakeholders and up to Senior Manager level
Ability to work independently and proactively.
Able to participate in technical detail, where required.
Take accountability for personal development including seeking feedback, building, and maintaining a meaningful personal development plan.
What decisions I can make
Review acceptance of solutions into BAU support
Approval of Changes to solution into the live environment.
Feed into the approach to roll out and deployment plans for the team
Budget responsibility at the tower level up to circa £25m.
Directly or indirectly manages
Access to the support of Architecture and Engineering expertise
Indirect management of 30+ Strategic Partner colleagues
Support we will provide
Service Assurance teams within Service Operations
Information Security team
Product teams
Technical subject matter experts across the domain.
Other Service Managers and Service Leads within the Domains across Sainsbury's Tech
Engineering teams both internal and external to Sainsbury’s Tech
Service and Delivery Communities of Practice
Procurement and Supplier Management support
Leaming and Development resources, including Our Sainsbury's.