Software Engineering Manager - Web Platform

Team: Digital & Tech
Store: London Support Office
Location: London, Greater London
Contract type: Permanent
Position type: Full Time
Salary: Competitive + Benefits; Closing date: 28th February 2025

How We Hire

Everyone is welcome at M&S. No exceptions. It’s your background, abilities and differences that make you, uniquely you. And when you’re part of M&S, that individuality has the potential to make waves.

About the role

This section tells you all you need to know about the position and its responsibilities, outlining everything we hope to see in a successful candidate.

All the details

Software Engineering Manager - Web Platform

What’s in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that – playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing outstanding quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special…

After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

#LI-Hybrid

Why Digital & Tech at M&S?

We're changing the way we do things, and putting industry leading innovation at the heart of how we operate; we need a stellar engineering team to make it happen. You'll be joining one of the most iconic brands in the UK on its most exciting cycle yet. We're more integrated and product led in our tech teams than ever before: learning, changing, and adapting constantly, with millions of people benefiting from your work every single day.

What you’ll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

You’ll be joining the M&S Platform team as a Software Engineering Manager. Our mission is to streamline development at M&S for 200+ engineers and 30+ applications - covering both our customer-facing and colleague-facing applications.

You will manage the team building the web platform. You will support the team and help direct the technical vision for how we will build reusable pipelines, tooling, build plugins and frameworks that our many apps will harness to boost the developer experience, while contributing code every step of the way.

We want to make M&S one of the best places for software development, target the latest tooling and enable our engineers to focus on building the best user experience so that they don’t get held up by common engineering and continuous integration problems.

Being accountable for engineering excellence within your teams, from behaviours to operations, from technical direction to solution in production and from skills and growth to reputation.
Cultivating self-management and accountability throughout the team via leadership, clear sense of purpose and thoughtful talent management.
Lead alignment with the overarching technical strategy and working with the wider Technology organisation to craft it.
Act as a platform owner, apply accurate product thinking to what is being built with a view to enable and empower as much as possible the digital product(s) that it supports through data and customer centricity, driving the related partner management.
Collaborate with the entire engineering leadership, to make us think strategically, to ensure maximum alignment and to maintain a healthy ability to “think big” within their teams.
Line management of supporting Staff and Senior Engineers, as well as driving recruitment and retention within the team.
Act as custodian of OKR’s within your hub.
Supports our engineering communities to drive bar raising and strategic alignment, by creating the space and time within teams for the agenda of these communities to be progressed efficiently.
When vendors are involved, the SEM is positioned as the key technical partner. They own it as a vital part of their platform with the same level of reliability and satisfaction as the in-house capabilities they build and run.

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

Previous polyglot hands-on senior software engineer
Excellent knowledge in modern web or app technologies
Extensive background in software engineering with several years’ experience in a variety of systems and technologies
Experience building and leading teams of highly skilled, senior software engineers that deliver high-quality software.
Excellent understanding of system design, software architecture, cloud, and software engineering standard 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 to a desired outcome, without prescribing it.
Excellent communication skills, both written and spoken and able to adjust for different, including non-technical audiences.
A servant-leadership mentality that is willing to take ownership of problems.
Able to influence people at senior levels and from the highly technical to non-technical

Our Tech Stack

Next.js/React
CSS Modules
Playwright & Jest
GraphQL
GitHub + GitHub Actions
NX
Azure

Everyone’s welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re redefining, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re redefining 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.

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Meet the Team

A group of colleagues gathered around a table, smiling and discussing work with laptops open in a modern office setting.

Being an in-person business

We're at our best when we're close to customers, and for many of us at M&S, that means working in store every day.

To stay close to customers, our support teams are in the office three days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected. It also means we can solve problems as soon as they arise, learn and grow as a team, build trust, and get closer to our colleagues.

Halford Head of Technical Program Management

I think all engineers just love solving puzzles and problems. At M&S, we’re constantly learning new things, whether it’s mastering Swift UI or understanding how customers interact with technology. But this is also a business that listens to engineers and values what we bring to the table. That’s different, believe me.

Janak (He / Him) | Staff iOS Engineer Read full story

At M&S, we have Data Scientists, Analysts, and Technical Product Managers, who all share a genuine passion for harnessing data to improve people’s lives. And we’re in a unique position where we can actually help many different kinds of people, from our customers to our colleagues in store and in our support centre.

Deepak (He / Him) | Data Scientist Read full story

Being in third-party brands, working on things M&S hasn’t done before… that plays to my sweet spot. I’ve worked in many organisations throughout my career, and it’s rare to see such cause and effect in your work. The way we’re structured means you’re encouraged to solve problems and you have the autonomy to make progress quickly.

Halford (He / Him) | Head of Technical Program Management Read full story

Make Your Mark

Upcoming projects

Take part in our M&S Digital & Tech team days. Grow your digital and data skills through our BEAM Academy. Or challenge yourself at one of our business-wide hackathons. We also partner with Women in Data, Databricks and Cajigo to increase opportunities for women in digital and data.

Opportunities to be heard

Your voice and your ideas matter here. Our 8 colleague networks are places to find support, listen to each other and encourage debate. You can pitch ideas ‘Straight to Stuart’, our CEO, or get involved in our BIG (Business involvement Group).

Colleague Networks

We want you to feel supported, no matter what.

The Cancer Network

This is a network driven by personal experiences, with the purpose of ensuring that anyone in the M&S family affected by Cancer feels supported and has access to the information they need.

The Gender Equality Network

This group is focused on helping to create a workplace where gender-related challenges are addressed. They raise awareness of common barriers faced and offer support. They also challenge the business to act and empower individuals to ensure that everyone has equal access to opportunities.

Menopause Network

Initiating and encouraging open conversations about menopause by offering support and sharing experiences.

The LGBTQ+ Network

Open to all members of the LGBTQ+ community and spectrum (and their allies), we promote equality, celebrate inclusivity and diversity, and encourage everyone to be themselves - whatever their sexual or gender identity.

The Family & Carers Network

This group represents the different types of families that exist. We act as a support network and sounding board for ideas which help our colleagues as parents or carers. We also run an interactive blog, where you can write your own posts or hear about others' experiences.

Culture and Heritage Network

Raising awareness of various religions and cultures through events and comms, to educate others and better represent our M&S colleagues and customers.

Forces Community Network

Supporting colleagues connected to the Armed Forces, aiding their transition to civilian life, and ensuring that they thrive in the workplace.

Health and Wellbeing Network

Providing a safe space for colleagues with all types of health conditions or disabilities and supporting with business initiatives to ensure our stores are truly accessible for our customers.

Benefits

Wellbeing hub

Get access to resources to support your wellbeing, including a free virtual GP service.
Giving back

Support your favourite charities by donating through your pay or even volunteering for them.
Pay

Earn a competitive salary.
Colleague discount

After completing your probation period, you'll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.

Please note only contracts of more than 12 weeks are eligible for this benefit.
Time off

Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days.
Bonus

We have discretionary bonus schemes depending on your role and our business performance.
Life assurance

Get cover for twice your salary up to age 70 (double with our Pension Plan).
Workplace savings

We’ll help you save through our Pension Savings Plan, Share Buy and Sharesave schemes.
My Choices

Save on everyday costs through discounts and offers and get access to great health benefits.
Cycle to work

Bike/accessory hire with Cycle to Work and save on tax and national insurance.
Smart tech

Buy the latest technology with interest-free financing directly from your salary.

How to Apply

Here’s what to expect at each stage of the application process. This can change depending on the role you’ve applied to. If you need any reasonable adjustments made at any stage, let us know and we can help.

Send us your application

Fill in our short application form and hit submit.

Online assessment

Depending on the role you are applying for, you may be invited to do an assessment. Your Talent Acquisition Partner will guide and inform you along the way.

Interview

We'll invite you to join us for an interview. This could be remote or in person. Here, we'll ask you some role based technical questions and examine the behaviours we're looking for.

Decision

After we’ve made our decision, we’ll be in touch. If you’ve been successful, we’ll officially invite you to join the team and let you know the next steps.