Development Lead

The candidate will have responsibilities across the following functions:

Technical Leadership and Development:

• Actively write and review code, ensuring alignment with Jira stories and secure coding practices.
• Perform code reviews and provide constructive feedback to team members.
• Assess and assign development tasks and defects to appropriate team members.
• Identify gaps in stories and defects, ensuring completeness and clarity.
• Maintain master branches, manage gitflow branching strategies, and ensure code is production-ready.
• Identify opportunities for code refactoring and drive continuous codebase improvement.
• Ensure adequate test coverage and address security risks found in security scans.
• Maintain proper code documentation for audit and compliance.
• Utilise tools such as Github Copilot to support development efficiency.
• Act as the technical SME for front-end technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Vue.js, Ember.js ).
• Solve technical problems and provide technical assistance and training to developers.
• Estimate and assess change requests and projects.
• Apply proven development methodologies (e. g., XP) within the Scrum team.
• Support troubleshooting and resolution of production issues, especially high-priority incidents.
• Continuously improve personal and team technical skills.

Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement:

• Implement the platform architect's vision by translating high-level architectural decisions into code.
• Escalate architectural issues to platform architects as required.
• Provide feedback to consultants on technological architecture and process decisions.
• Collaborate with technical leads from other departments for cross-platform integration.
• Attend variance calls and respond to queries from other Lines of Business regarding project work.
• Share knowledge with and train team members.
• Drive agile transformation and continuous feedback for team improvement.
• Collaborate closely with QA, UI/UX, BSA, and Editorial groups to remove blockers and ensure smooth inter-team collaboration.
• Lead product demos and represent the team in relevant forums.

Work Assignment Accountability:

• Attend relevant meetings for assigned work and ensure team members are on track with their assignments.
• Monitor project development progress and escalate issues related to work ethic, sprint commitments, or threats to timelines.
• Set project development plans based on requirements and ensure delivery from development through to production and warranty.
• Raise blockers to the scrum master as needed.

Release Duties:

• Lead and support release activities leading up to and during production cutover.
• Support release teams during cutover, which may require on-site or on-call participation.

Cross-Functional Relationship:

• Collaborates with platform architects, technical leads from other departments, QA, UI/UX, BSA, Editorial, and consultants to ensure alignment and integration of solutions.
• Works with stakeholders across Lines of Business to answer project-related queries and support cross-platform initiatives.

Requirements:

• 7+ years of relevant experience in front-end development.
• Proficient in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and front-end frameworks such as Vue.js, React, Angular, and Ember.js .
• Strong experience with GitFlow workflow and branch management.
• Advanced knowledge of agile software practices and development methodologies (e. g., XP, Scrum).
• Experience leading and mentoring development teams.
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.
• Ability to assess, estimate, and manage development tasks and projects.
• Experience with secure coding practices and addressing security risks.