Vice President of Software Engineering

VP Engineering, Americas

Reporting to: Chief Technology Officer

The Role & Purpose

As VP, Engineering Americas, you’ll lead the Americas software engineering function and resources.

As a key member of the Americas Executive and Senior Leadership Teams, you’ll ensure that Engineering runs smoothly from conception and prioritization to scheduling and execution, working with your Engineering Directors to ensure consistently successful outcomes

As a key member of global Engineering Leadership you’ll contribute to Iris winning across all territories

You’re passionate about the needs of our customers, their issues and how our software products can make their lives easier. You’ll inspire Engineering, putting the customer at the centre of what they do, working closely with colleagues in Product to ensure aligned and common goals.

You’ll make sure our vision and strategies are deliverable, and you’ll play a pivotal role in ensuring that Engineering really delivers across the Accountancy, Payroll and Payments portfolios in the Americas

In short, we’re looking for a technologist with proven experience to lead and scale Americas Engineering: one that is equally comfortable in Commercial, Operational, Product and Engineering settings, can communicate technology to non-technologists, can set technical strategy, identify emerging trends, inspire teams to deliver, and drive constant innovation.

The role in detail:

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Work with your Engineering Directors to maintain appropriately sized and cost-effective software engineering teams, including IRIS owned COE’s in Romania and India, as Iris scales, as it grows organically and through acquisition. Assist in the selection and managing of third-parties appropriate to project workload.
• Work in partnership with your Engineering Directors and Product to ensure that our software enables IRIS customers to be more effective at what they do and provide pathways for them to consume more and gain even more value.
• Work in partnership with your Engineering Directors and Architecture to ensure principles and standards are understood by software engineering teams across our domains and translated into consistently simple, scalable and innovative software solutions.
• Ensure that our software products operate to the required service levels to support our global customer base and standards expected of modern Cloud/SaaS services. Take a lead in establishing secure processes and systems used to prevent, detect, mitigate and recover from cyberattacks, whilst educating and managing technology risk in collaboration with business leaders.
• Take a lead in engineering ways of working from build, through test and deploy, into production across multiple cloud platforms, products and technologies, establishing a consistent SDLC that underpins engineering efficiency, work with Product and Architecture functions to ensure engineering teams have what they need to be effective
• Be the custodian of production deployment, monitoring and alerting regimes; ensure careful planning and lessons learnt are implemented.
• Consistently evaluate software engineering efficiency, driving automation wherever possible, leveraging modern technologies - such as engineering AI support - to maximise potential. Track, analyse and act upon platform and software engineering proficiency/performance metrics.
• Act as gatekeeper for recruitment across US, Romania and India COE’s. Take a lead in the establishment of skill developments to develop/maintain skill levels throughout the technology team. Ensure coherent personal development planning and career development frameworks
• Ensure we do not duplicate the technology that we already use, having a clear view of the platforms and maximising their capabilities.
• Take responsibility for data protection across the organisation, ensuring that we comply with GDPR and manage any issues which may arise including working with the ICO where required.
• Work with UK based counterparts to ensure consistency of approach appropriate for a global software engineering operation
• Be a thought leader: plan, develop, inspire, excite and communicate, contribute to company standards, best practices, white papers, take a lead on knowledge management and marketing materials.
• Be a valued and credible leader and peer to the rest of the Senior Leadership Team - serve as the public face of technology for the company, strengthening customer and stakeholder confidence in IRIS, leading technical relationships with partners, vendors, and suppliers.

What Success Looks Like:

• Great software that supports our customers
• A software engineering team seen to deliver to its potential, across US, Romania and India
• Consistent software engineering standards applied, maximised reuse, maximised ability to deploy engineering resources across domains as needs arise
• Speed and accuracy of releases improving over time
• A recognisable identity for Iris Engineering in the Americas

Requirements:

• Previous Head of Engineering of a similar sized (or larger) organisation. Ideally with product knowledge that aligns to those offered by IRIS.
• Extensive experience in end-to-end product lifecycle management, including engineering and technical leadership.
• Proven experience of having overseen the successful architecting, build and operation of modern SaaS platforms based in AWS and/or Azure. This includes cloud native platforms, API first design principles, and the migration from on-prem/monolithic services. Demonstrable experience and ability to leverage data architecture implementations, with large data volumes and cloud native database technologies.
• Seasoned technologist with significant experience in building, integrating and running technical platform/product infrastructure and application-oriented mission critical commercial services to paying customers.
• Proven track record in building, evolving and maintaining a software engineering function that manages platforms and products from modern distributed cloud through to desktop. Proven experience in leadership role in an environment specialising in development methodologies such as Agile, DevOps & Site Reliability Engineering. Experience working internationally with a variety of cultures, thinking globally
• Breadth of experience in leading and legacy technologies and the ability to effectively evaluate current state technology landscapes and develop and execute modernization, consolidation, and convergence plans.
• Experience integrating AI capabilities to SaaS platforms and user journeys is highly desirable
• Strong experience preparing and presenting high quality and engaging presentations – able to influence large groups of senior stakeholders through compelling storytelling.
• Commercially astute, considering and clearly demonstrating the resulting value of any proposed investment or strategy. Be motivated by commercial and customer oriented KPI’s.
• Previous experience of technology due diligence, acquisition integration; combining and scaling products and technologies
• Proven track record of successfully developing and delivering complex products, at scale, on budget and on time.

Personal qualities:

• A proactive, energetic, pragmatic, hardworking individual with strong stakeholder management and team building skills
• A sense of urgency - multi-tasking, prioritization skills, ability to collaborate, adapting to change
• Excellent influencing, negotiating, organizational, analytical, problem solving, written and oral communication skills
• A highly developed ability to deal with ambiguity and fluid situations
• Strong people management skills, including developing and mentoring people within and outside of the team

About IRIS Software:

IRIS Software Group is one of the largest privately held software companies in the UK. We’ve supplied innovative administrative solutions to businesses, charities, and the public sector for over 40 years. We are close to 3000 employees in the IRIS family today with operations in the UK, Ireland, Romania, North America and India.

We have very significant growth plans in the Americas over the next 12-18 months to build upon our already impressive footprint. We have a clear M&A strategy and will acquire high performing, innovative cloud first tech businesses.

We exist to simplify the lives of businesses, schools and organisations, by providing software solutions and services that substantially enhance operational compliance, efficiency and accuracy, empowering the users of our technology to look forward with certainty and confidence.