As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you’ll be joining a well-loved historic brand, working on solutions that serve millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues. This is an exciting time as we continue our transformation into a digital-first, engineering-led organisation, with technology playing a key role in delivering value across the business.
As a Software Engineering Manager, you’ll combine people leadership, technical direction and delivery excellence to build high-performing teams, drive engineering standards and deliver scalable software solutions that support business outcomes.
A key focus of this role will be supporting the Fashion, Home & Beauty programme to decouple core business capabilities from SAP. As part of this transformation, you will lead the engineering activities required to build new backend services and evolve existing platforms, ensuring solutions are scalable, maintainable and aligned to M&S technology strategy.
Due to high interest, this role may close earlier than advertised. We recommend applying as soon as possible.
What You'll Do
Your key accountabilities will include:
- Lead and develop a high-performing software engineering team, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, accountability and continuous improvement.
- Oversee the delivery of software initiatives, ensuring solutions are aligned to business goals, customer needs, timelines and quality expectations.
- Drive engineering excellence by establishing strong technical standards, challenging solution design decisions and promoting modern software engineering practices.
- Ensure software solutions are secure, reliable, resilient and operationally effective, with quality, performance and maintainability built into delivery.
- Manage relationships with vendors, partners and stakeholders, holding them accountable for high-quality delivery and successful business outcomes.
- Act as the primary Engineering contact for the wider SAP Decoupling Programme, partnering closely with Product, Delivery and Business stakeholders to ensure successful outcomes.
- Work with Domain Architects and Solution Architects to design and deliver appropriate technical solutions that support business processes transitioning away from SAP.
- Form, scale and lead engineering teams responsible for building new services and modernising existing capabilities, leveraging both existing and new engineering resources.
- Ensure strong engineering maturity, adherence to M&S technology standards and the effective adoption of AI tooling across the software development lifecycle where appropriate.
Who You Are
Your skills and experience will include:
- Proven experience leading and developing high-performing software engineering teams, delivering scalable and high-quality software solutions.
- Strong software engineering background with experience across a range of technologies, architectures and distributed systems.
- Excellent understanding of software architecture, system design, cloud technologies, DevOps principles and engineering best practices.
- Strong people leadership, communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence both technical and non-technical audiences.
- A collaborative, servant-leadership approach with strong analytical and problem-solving skills, coupled with a focus on continuous improvement and ownership.
- Experience leading large-scale technology transformation initiatives, modernisation programmes or platform migrations across complex enterprise environments.
- Strong technical judgement with the ability to challenge architectural decisions, balance business priorities with technical requirements and drive pragmatic outcomes.
Tech Stack
The teams use a variety of technologies, including:
- Java, Spring, Spring Boot and Micronaut
- React, Next.js, TypeScript and Angular
- Azure Cloud, Kubernetes and Dynatrace
- SQL Server and MongoDB
- Ignite and Redis
Additional technologies for this programme are expected to include:
- Java and Micronaut
- Potential use of Kotlin for new backend service development
Desirable Experience
- Knowledge of the Retail domain, particularly around the Clothing Product Development and Planning lifecycle, would be highly advantageous.
- Experience delivering SAP modernisation, decomposition or decoupling programmes.
- Experience designing and delivering microservices architectures, API-first integrations and cloud-native backend services.
What’s in it for you?
Working at M&S means being part of something bigger – helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.
Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:
- 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation.
- Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more.
- Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours.
- Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future.
- Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one.
- Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal.
- Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave.
- 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services.
- One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you.
Everyone’s Welcome
We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.
We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.
If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.
#LI-NO1 #LI-Hybrid
Skills Required
- Previous polyglot hands-on senior software engineer
- Experience working on highly scalable web or backend software solutions
- Experience building and leading teams of senior software engineers
- Excellent understanding of system design, software architecture, cloud, and engineering methodologies
- Promoter of DevOps: you build it, you run it
- Strong understanding of testing strategies and reliability engineering
- Excellent people management, interpersonal, analytical, and problem-solving skills
- Ability to lead and line manage senior engineers and technical partners
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including non-technical audiences
- Servant-leadership mentality and ownership of problems
- Experience with Java, Spring, SpringBOOT, Micronaut
- Experience with React, Next.js, Typescript, Angular
- Experience with Azure Cloud, Kubernetes, Dynatrace (observability)
- Experience with SQL Server, MongoDB
- Experience with Ignite, Redis
- Knowledge of the Retail domain, particularly clothing product development and planning lifecycle
What We Do
At M&S, we're dedicated to being the most trusted retailer, prioritising quality and delivering value. Every day, we bring the magic of M&S to our customers, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us. For over a century, we've set the standard, doing the right thing and embracing innovation. Today, with over 65,000 colleagues serving 32 million customers globally, we're putting quality products at the heart of everything we do. Tomorrow holds boundless opportunities with us. We're pioneering digital innovation and shaping the future of retail where our values drive every action. We stay close to customers and colleagues, always curious and connected. Our decisions are bold, our actions ambitious. Transparency is paramount, with straightforward, honest communication. We're constantly innovating, always striving for the best. Our focus is on aiming higher and winning together, combined with wise financial decisions to secure our future. Join us at M&S to shape the future of retail.
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