Technical Lead - Underwriting Technology

Permanent

London

Hybrid - 2 days in office

£110,000 + Bonus + Progression + Benefits

Fantastic Opportunity.

About the Role

The Technology Lead will need to have a clear understanding of the commercial imperatives for these UW Technology Initiatives and drive technology direction, staying up to date with the latest technologies and industry trends, and driving continuous improvement initiatives to enhance team productivity and business outcomes.

About the Department & Team

Key Responsibilities

Understanding the UW Technology initiatives landscape for my client on a global basis, and the different UW Technology initiatives to design and support the implementation of proportionate and fit for purpose solutions designs and plans, including the downstream impacts on the technology landscape, and associated governance/controls..

Solution Design:

Understand the individual initiatives and products to build and present designs (based on the high-level design considerations and transition states) to a sufficient level of detail for translation into technical deliverables

Set-up and run a Design Authority Group, in line with the Terms of Reference

Collaborate with Product Owners, Architects and Development teams to develop the solution design, aligning detailed designs with the high-level design and escalating any deviations

Work closely with Software Architects, challenging their decisions and collaborating with them to optimise technical designs and translate them into technical deliverables

Documenting key transition states from a Technology delivery point of view, and evolution throughout interim states, to a target Technology state

Technology Capabilities & Standards:

Provide application design and programming expertise and guidance to Technology professionals involved in the development and enhancement of business applications

Work with Technology areas to identify, propose and implement new technologies as solutions to business needs, based on strategic direction and priorities

Aligning the detailed designs with the wider GRS Technology Roadmap and 'North Star' Architecture and standards

Create technical documentation for development solutions, future reference, and reporting

Supporting the Development Teams:

Work with agile development teams to build and enhance a growing software platform and provide technical leadership throughout the technical design and sprint process and ensure the team delivers high quality work that supports the delivery of business capabilities and associated value.

Develop and set documentation and standards for all development and delivery activities, including using a common approach, structure, and platform (eg Confluence) for documentation, be responsible for checking that these standards are being properly met and ensure documentation and reporting evolves as requirements change over time.

Supporting GRS/GRSI's Agile Transformation - the Technology Lead is also responsible supporting Agile practices at both the Team and Portfolio level, including:

Facilitating the prioritisation of features for Program Increment (PI) 90/30-day planning and individual Sprint planning and prioritisation, supporting the Portfolio Head and Product Owners to manage change to the programs' PI plan and identify the impacts of those changes

Driving cross team, Portfolio, and departmental planning, collaboration, coordination, including identifying dependencies and resolving impediments

Driving delivery and continuous improvement by utilising feedback and metrics (quality, delivery rate, etc.) to identify areas of opportunity

Participating at Portfolio level and within cross-functional teams as a subject matter expert to develop and improve operating policies and procedures and be an advocate in adopting Agile best practices and processes

Supporting the configuration of Scaled Agile to the needs of the organisation, standardising, and documenting practices

Skills and Experience

Technology Expertise - you will have experience as the technology expert on a development team where you were responsible for everything from planning to delivering key features and management of those features. To be successful in the role you will need to quickly develop a deep understanding of the products and business goals which you can translate into technology direction, design, and decisions. Experience of Insurance and Reinsurance business and supporting technologies and/or experience leading implementation programs for the same is preferable.

Agile and Scaled Agile practices - you know about and can lead on a range of Agile and Scaled Agile tools and techniques and be an advocate for these tools and techniques. You can establish a feedback loop for teams; you can take responsibility for the translation and measurement of value (what you put in and what you will get out) and ensure this relates to UW Technology Initiatives objectives and business needs. You can ensure the team has a situational awareness of work and priorities across the team.

Angular 6

Java/JavaScript/JSON

Ci/Cd pipeline build & deployment tools eg Bamboo

Micro services & APIs

Cloud experience (AWS & Azure) and serverless code deployment

API integration experience, REST preferred

Understanding of event driven architecture.

Different AWS deployment methods eg native EC2, Pivotal Cloud Foundry (JVM) & Docker

Familiar with design thinking, behaviour, and test-driven development/familiarity with test-and-learn approaches

Experience of SQL database development, SSIS and cloud deployment eg RDS in AWS

Knowledge of containerised deployments and optimisation techniques & tools eg Docker, Fargate, Kubernetes

Experience of working with wider project teams including Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Business Analysts and Testers

Experience of producing technical support documentation

Experience of writing technical specifications/User Stories

Experience of working within the full development life cycle ie development, unit testing and release management

Experience of source code repositories, code branching and version control systems eg GIT and TFS