System Engineer Manager - Data Platforms (Stack Optimisation)

As the Systems Engineering Manager for Data Platforms, you are an integral part of Tesco Technology's Data and Analytics team, transforming the way we operate our system and leading the team through the change.

You are an effective leader responsible for translating strategy into action, executing relevant plans and driving transformation based on data. You champion great collaboration within your teams and liaise with peers in delivering a consistent good service. You maintain a good balance of technical and management expertise and support the team in delivering their targets and providing excellent customer service. 

Using your technical breadth and depth you lead your team and inspire the engineering community you interact with to deliver successful outcomes.  Working with internal teams and suppliers, you focus on managing engineering aspects in the most efficient and optimal manner.  You can relate at all levels of the organisation and are comfortable talking to senior stakeholders.

You lead a team that has accountability for the engineering excellence of the systems powering the data platforms and show tenacity and courage while dealing with known and unfamiliar systems. 

Your area of responsibility cohesively spans infrastructure, operating systems, big data frameworks, software and resource management and scheduling.  You lead your team in researching familiar and unknown systems, designing and building solutions and troubleshooting complex cross functional problems and performance bottlenecks across the stack.

• Manage activities of members of the systems engineering job family, building a team culture for continuous improvement and environment where engineers want to work.
• Recruit, develop and empower the team to make good quality decision and consistently deliver.
• Build a function to support change and incidents in live including all engineering teams involved.
• Manage team performance and improve capabilities by defining training plans, objectives, providing feedback 
• Spot talent/high performance in the team and providing timely reward and recognition.
• Ensure your team meets the required quality standards, commitments and objectives.
• Operate globally, ensuring consistency in approach throughout all our locations.
• Ensure operational stability is balanced with engineering and roadmap delivery.
• Champion adoption of new tools and techniques being able to understand their value and impact.
• Continuously share feedback with the engineering teams for them to meet the required quality standards.
• Keep your technical skills up to date and keep track of new technologies and processes, understanding how they might benefit the Technology team and wider Tesco.
• Contribute to managing external suppliers against contractual obligations whilst improving the service provided.
• Manage stakeholder communication and escalations.

This role will best suit team leader who enjoys motivating his team to solve complex problems, is well organised, pragmatic and a lateral thinker with an inquisitive mind who is driven to make change for the better and, most importantly, puts our customers first.

• A compelling track record of managing globally distributed teams.
• Strong knowledge of large scale, complex platform operations
• Track record of managing critical, large-scale service in a global organisation
• Strong technical knowledge of large scale, complex platform operations
• Managing change and incidents in a globally distributed team
• Experience at optimising the work to deliver solutions to complex problems at pace.
• Managing the expectations of senior stake holders during significant incidents.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• A methodical/ analytical approach and great problem-solving skills
• Team player who could work collaboratively with other members of the team
• Managing spikes in the big data environment
• Awareness of Compute, Storage, Networking and Virtualisation in a distributed compute environment
• Linux OS fundamentals and troubleshooting
• Docker/Kubernetes fundamentals and troubleshooting
• Java / Scala fundamentals and troubleshooting
• Cloud Technologies
• Infrastructure as a Code
• Systems Security and Disaster Recovery

We offer excellent benefits that help make Tesco a great place to work!  These include but are not limited to:

• Annual bonus scheme
• Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (and bank holidays)
• Great colleague discounts and deals, saving you money on everyday purchases, utility bills for the home and more
• Retirement savings plan – save between 4% and 7.5% and Tesco will match your contribution
• Buy as you earn and Save as you earn share schemes
• Opportunities to get on – take advantage of our ongoing learning opportunities and award-winning training to help you achieve the career you want

Our vision at Tesco is to become every customer’s favourite way to shop, whether they are at home or out on the move.  Our core purpose is “Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day”.  Serving means more than a transactional relationship with our customers.  It means acting as a responsible and sustainable business for all stakeholders, for the communities we are part of, and for the planet.

We are proud to have an inclusive culture at Tesco where everyone truly feels able to be themselves.  At Tesco, we not only celebrate diversity, but recognise the value and opportunity it brings.  We’re committed to creating a workplace where differences are valued, and make sure that all colleagues are given the same opportunities.  We’re a big business with diverse working patterns and many business areas which means that we can find something that works for you.  Everyone is welcome at Tesco.

We have recently announced that we are moving to a more blended working week – combining office and remote working.  Our offices continue to be where we connect, collaborate and innovate.  Talk to us about how this can work for you.

Note: Should you be successful in your application, your employment will be subject to and conditional upon you providing your bank account details on your agreed start date.