About Goaco

Goaco is a digital and technology services company working across the UK, UAE and other developing markets. We deliver software, digital services, data, artificial intelligence, cloud, cyber security, managed services, live services, delivery and user-centred design.

We work with public-sector and private-sector customers to design, build, improve and support secure, accessible and reliable services. Goaco is Microsoft-first, using technologies such as Azure,.NET, GitHub, Azure DevOps, Microsoft 365 and infrastructure as code. However, we take a language-agnostic approach and select technologies according to customer needs, the problem being solved, existing environments, security, supportability, cost and long-term value.

Our values are Equality, Integrity, Honesty, Humility and Collaboration. These values guide how we work with our people, customers, partners and communities.

Role purpose

The Software Development Manager is responsible for leading, managing and developing Goaco’s UK software-development capability.

The role combines people management, engineering leadership, resource planning, technical standards, professional development and delivery oversight. The Software Development Manager ensures development teams have the skills, standards, support and capacity required to deliver secure, accessible, maintainable and reliable software.

The role works closely with Solutions Architects, Delivery Managers, QA, DevOps, Security, Product, Data and User-Centred Design teams. Solutions Architects remain responsible for solution architecture and major design decisions, while the Software Development Manager is responsible for developer capability, implementation standards and predictable engineering delivery.

Responsibilities

• The Software Development Manager will line-manage software developers, junior developers, apprentices and assigned technical leads.
• They will hold regular one-to-ones, performance reviews and career-development discussions, set clear objectives and provide constructive feedback, coaching and mentoring.
• They will create an environment where junior developers and apprentices can learn safely, ask questions, receive regular support and progressively take on greater responsibility.
• They will identify skills gaps and support recruitment, onboarding, training and succession planning. They will maintain an accurate view of developer skills, capacity, allocation, availability and future demand and allocate people according to business priorities, customer commitments and individual development needs.
• The Software Development Manager will support delivery planning, estimation and milestone setting. They will monitor engineering progress, blockers, dependencies, quality, technical debt and delivery risks. They will escalate concerns early and provide clear options, impacts and recommendations.
• They will establish, maintain and improve Goaco’s software-development standards. These standards will cover coding, repositories, branching, pull requests, peer review, testing, documentation, dependencies, versioning, secrets, error handling, logging, monitoring, deployment, release and production support.
• They will promote clean code, reusable components and the practical application of SOLID and DRY principles. They will ensure these principles improve maintainability and quality without creating unnecessary abstraction or complexity.
• They will promote a language-agnostic engineering culture. Technology decisions should be based on customer and user needs, the problem being solved, security, performance, accessibility, supportability, team capability, cost and long-term value rather than individual preference or familiarity with a particular language.
• They will work with Solutions Architects and technical leads to promote appropriate architectural approaches, including domain-driven design, event-driven architecture, API-first development, modular systems and loosely coupled components.
• They will help teams understand domain models, bounded contexts, aggregates, events, contracts, ownership and integration boundaries. They will ensure these patterns are introduced when they provide clear value and are not adopted simply because they are fashionable.
• The Software Development Manager will work with Solutions Architects to ensure approved designs are practical, understood and implemented correctly. They will identify and escalate departures from agreed architecture, engineering or security standards.
• They will work with QA to improve test coverage, regression testing, defect management and quality evidence. They will work with DevOps and Cloud teams to improve continuous integration, continuous deployment, infrastructure as code, environment controls, monitoring, alerting and operational support.
• They will ensure releases have appropriate test evidence, security checks, approvals, release notes, support documentation and rollback plans. They will review failed releases, escaped defects and production incidents and make sure corrective and preventative actions are completed.
• They will identify, record and manage technical debt and ensure its cost, risk, support impact and delivery impact are visible. They will use evidence such as cycle time, pull-request ageing, rework, escaped defects, release success, vulnerabilities and technical-debt ageing to improve engineering performance.
• The Software Development Manager will contribute technical estimates, assumptions, dependencies and risks to bids, proposals and change requests. They will support customer meetings where engineering leadership or technical delivery assurance is required.
• They will capture lessons from projects, releases and incidents and convert them into reusable standards, checklists, templates, examples and training materials. They will maintain Goaco’s software-development guidance within the Goaco Operating Playbook.