Software Development Manager

Lead Forensics Group; Portsmouth; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading SaaS company in Portsmouth seeks a Software Development Manager to oversee engineering performance and personal development. This role involves mentoring developers, managing performance metrics, and fostering a continuous improvement culture. Ideal candidates will have significant SaaS and DevOps experience, a strong programming aptitude, and a relevant degree. The company offers a competitive salary, benefits, and a vibrant company culture focused on teamwork and growth.

Benefits

Competitive salary and benefits

Community engagement opportunities

Supportive company culture

Qualifications

• Significant experience in a SaaS environment with clean code.
• Experience in monitoring engineering performance.
• Strong programming aptitude and problem-solving skills.
• Hands-on software engineering experience with DevOps practices.
• Understanding of maintainable systems.

Responsibilities

• Set and evaluate performance metrics for developers.
• Provide feedback and support for performance challenges.
• Lead and mentor developers in a collaborative environment.
• Conduct regular performance reviews and identify training needs.
• Drive retention initiatives and foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Skills

SaaS experience

DevOps practices

Interpersonal skills

Problem-solving

Performance management

Education

Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

SQL Server

Redis

Snowflake

NestJS

NodeJS

Vue

Job description

Software Development Manager

Summary

Lead Forensics is a rapidly growing, leading SAAS company with products in the B2B sales and marketing space. We’re seeking a Software Development Manager within our engineering department that builds our customer facing products. You will be responsible for the performance and personal development of a section of our engineering department.

You will need to be highly competent in our tech stack our modern tech stack (NestJS/NodeJS, Vue, Redis, SQL Server and Snowflake), able to get down into the code when required to critique and drive the quality of the code created, as well as drive efficiencies in speed at which it is created.

This is a role that would suit someone with a very strong development background, with expertise in creating clean code following DevOps practises and strong interpersonal skills, who has moved into a management career path.

Key Responsibilities

• Performance Management: Set, monitor, and evaluate performance metrics for developers, ensuring that productivity and quality targets are met.
• Performance Management: Be the owner of and guardian of the standard of the asset being created, ensuring it is optimal for productivity and our long-term engineering performance.
• Performance Management: Provide constructive feedback and guidance to developers, helping them overcome performance challenges and achieve their goals.
• Performance Management: Implement and refine performance management processes that promote accountability and transparency across teams.
• People Management: Line management of a section of our engineering department, driving personal development and performance management for line reports.
• People Management: Lead and mentor developers, fostering a positive and collaborative environment.
• People Management: Conduct regular 1:1s and performance reviews to support individual career progression, skills development, and job satisfaction.
• People Management: Identify training and development needs within the department, facilitating access to learning resources and opportunities and organising or delivering new training solutions.
• Recruitment and Retention: Support recruitment processes by identifying talent needs, participating in interviews, and helping select candidates who align with team culture and values.
• Recruitment and Retention: Drive retention initiatives to keep high-performing team members engaged and motivated, supporting employee satisfaction and reducing turnover.
• Continuous Improvement: Foster and drive a culture of continuous improvement within engineering teams, where team members are motivated to share ideas and improve processes.
• Continuous Improvement: Identify and implement best practices for team productivity and well-being, keeping abreast of industry trends and tools that can enhance team performance.
• Continuous Improvement: Facilitate retrospectives and other reflective activities to gather insights on team performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

Culture and Engagement

• Actively promote and build a high‑trust, high‑collaboration engineering culture with excellent communication and collaboration within engineering teams.
• Champion and model company values, acting as a role model for team members and fostering a healthy work culture.

The ideal candidate will have

• Significant experience in a SaaS environment of rapid and efficient software development with clean code, SOLID principals and design patterns, and building the competency for this in teams.
• Experience of monitoring engineering performance and driving continuous improvement of performance.
• A strong general aptitude for programming and problem solving. You’ll need to pick up new tools and techniques quickly and use them to solve problems.
• Significant previous experience as a hands on software engineer working with mature DevOps practises, and to have maintained the skills required to get down into the code when required.
• A strong understanding of what is required to create and operate maintainable systems.
• Experience with automated testing and quality assurance
• An understanding of how to build systems that perform well at scale
• Enthusiasm for building secure systems and implementing security best practices
• Experience of leading engineering teams building complex/distributed systems
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills
• A degree in Computer Science or related field from a recognised university with a strong academic reputation, ideally completed with strong academic performance or distinction.

What we offer in return

• Competitive salary and benefits.
• Be part of a fantastic company culture; we all display our Company DNA’s, foster a “One Team” and ‘Growth’ mentality.
• Give back to the wider community with volunteer days, fundraisers and charity events.