New Job Title:Head of Information Technology (IT)

Sector:LawTech / SaaS

Salary:£80,000-95,000 (+3% pension & 2% options)

Reports to:Director of Operations

Location:Hybrid (home + co-working)

Employer:Legal Utopia Limited

Status:FTE

Start Date:October 2024

You must have the pre-existing right to work in the UK and not dependent on visa sponsorship. Please take note of the application process.

Overview:

Legal Utopia is a LawTech business based in London that was founded in 2017. Its mission is to make law accessible and affordable to everyone, and in the 7 years since it was founded, it has successfully developed innovations into commercial market solutions that help identify the area within which legal problems fall, connect people with regulated legal service providers, as well as signpost them to other relevant services.

As part of Legal Utopia’s corporate strategy to deliver on its mission, it is continuing to heavily invest in the development of new technologies and solutions that progress positive engagement between the consumer market and the regulated legal professions.

A highly experienced full stack developer is sought to take up a leadership function in the IT department with responsibility across all service applications and supporting infrastructure. The successful candidate will be responsible for IT Governance, including documentation and testing, as well as analysing their tasks, identifying resources, software and API development, as well as deployment, maintenance, bug fixing, and service monitoring. They will take a predominately backend focused software development role whilst being responsible for oversight and support of frontend software development, data engineering, and AI development. They will need to be proficient, and tenacious, in working on (and with) non-standard architecture and complex logic (in particular, backend endpoint development and third-party integrations) to rapidly progress new features.

It is essential the candidate has, and meets, all the essential criteria for this position and that the candidate is in a position of knowledge and experience to take up the responsibilities.

Key responsibilities:

• Manage and support the development, maintenance, and implementation of our service applications, including web and mobile applications, and all supporting cloud and software infrastructure;
• Take responsibility for the information technology function, and department, of the business, including line management of its developers, engineers, and project manager employees, contractors, suppliers and vendors;
• Manage, support, and collaborate with the Machine Learning Engineer in the strategic research and development of new artificial intelligence and other advance technologies to deliver on company strategy and vision, product innovation and delivery;
• Lead on all backend software development, monitoring, and management;
• Take responsibility for, development, monitoring and management of, multiple cross-business, data, and analytics systems to support business information management and reporting;
• Support the research and development function with technical implementation and resources;
• Collaborate and cooperate with the Head of Design to review user-interface and experience proposals providing technical feedback and planning input;
• Manage, update, and maintain multiple staging and production environments across various service applications;
• Take responsibility for all monitoring systems, code, and development quality, quantity, uptime, and overall performance to deliver and maintain adequate levels of service delivery;
• Lead on technical and product data collection and management, including storage security, redundancy back-ups, data governance frameworks and compliance;
• Lead on integration implementation, API development and maintenance;
• Review, plan, and collaborate with colleagues on the implementation of proposed UI/X designs and product requirements;
• Collaborate with the Senior Technical Project Manager and report on all technical project tickets;
• Conduct and coordinate the creation of technical acceptance criteria, PO ticket and code reviews, PRs, TDD and local testing compliance, as well as progressing commitments and deployments to staging and production;
• Maintain, develop, and apply company IT policy, IT governance, and research and development governance to all work to ensure process, procedure, and best practice is adhered to;
• Develop the company’s IT strategy and operations, including the development of the long-term roadmap for IT infrastructure;
• Cooperate and engage with the Project Legal Adviser on relevant legal compliance;
• Participate and contribute technical expertise as a member of the internal AI Governance Board;
• Ability to undertake and take responsibility for the comprehensive documentation (existing and new) within the IT function;
• Take responsibility for logging and reporting (including, when necessary, to an independent Chartered Auditor) on all project activity;
• Act as the primary lead backend software developer to the technology team in collaboration with colleagues;
• Input into the corporate annual planning, from the IT perspective, on proposed business objectives, strategy, and plans;
• Take on the IT leadership role within the company with a positive and “can do” approach to assist the business achieve its mission, vision, values, and corporate strategy; and
• Other relevant matters as reasonably provided or directed by the Director of Operations.

Requirements:

Application Process:

Successful candidates must clearly evidence all the essential criteria in their application. This should be provided in a cover letter, CV, and completion of the pre-screening questions. Applications can be made by email or LinkedIn by 17:00 BST 20th November 2024. Sifted and selected candidates will be notified by 27th November 2024 for interview.

Essential:

• Undergraduate degree in software development/computer science/similar relevant degree;
• 10+ years’ experience in the same or a similar role;
• Strong and passionate full stack developer with an ability to take on complex BE infrastructure and logic projects;
• Strong knowledge using Vercel, Amplify, Google Cloud, Microsoft App Centre, Azure, Apple Connect, Google Console, Github, BugSnag, Slack, Jira for Software (Atlassian);
• Familiarity with AWS, including Lambda, ECS, S3, RDS
• Strong experience with Django framework, Wagtail, XCode, Terraform, docker and the design/development of REST APIs
• Familiarity with Stripe payments gateway
• Excellent knowledge and 7+ years' (employment) experience in using HTML5/CSS/React/React Native/Java/Node/NextJS/TypeScript/Python/Material UI
• Github contributor track-record
• Capability to build CSS and front-end implementation for multi-device support based on UI/UX designs
• Knowledge of web accessibility and associated tooling
• Experience in software testing best practices (TDD, BDD)
• Experience deploying mobile apps (react native) via XCode and Connect, as well as Google Console;
• Excellent communication, with strong emphasis on transparency and honesty, and tenacity for problem-solving with an attention to detail;
• Experience with authentication (OAuth, OIDC, etc)
• Strong prior experience with IT Governance leadership and/or management, including setting and following best practice testing frameworks and documentation standards.

Desirable:

• Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Master’s degree in computer science/analytics/business systems
• Demonstrable experience with SaaS/Marketplace products on cloud platforms
• Experience with code automation/using GenAI to drive coding efficiency
• Experience with establishing and managing Tableau environment
• Experience working with MySQL or other relational databases
• Experience working on fortnightly sprints and quarterly reporting with an agile approach
• Knowledge of and/or involvement in LawTech or legal technology
• Experience of working in the consumer facing LegalTech companies
• Experience working in start-up/scale-up environments
• Knowledge of user-interface design and/or user-experience principles

Benefits:

• 3% employer pension contribution
• High-Performance MacBook Pro laptop (transferred to you upon 12-months continuous employment)
• Co-working office space (if desired)
• 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday + bank holidays (England & Wales)
• Employee share options pool scheme