Head of Software Engineering – HR

As Head of Software Engineering – Corporate HR, you will lead the engineering teams responsible for a broad and integration-heavy HR technology estate that supports the full colleague lifecycle at M&S, from recruitment through to payroll, reward, learning and workforce management.

Responsibilities

• Set the engineering strategy and technical direction for Corporate HR, aligned to Central Tech and the wider engineering organisation.
• Lead and develop 4–5 Engineering Managers and support strong software engineering and Software Development Engineer in Test teams.
• Oversee the engineering health of the core HR technology estate, including:
  • Oracle PeopleSoft for workforce record administration, compensation, learning and core HR processes
  • SD Worx for payroll
  • JDA for workforce management
  • Totara for learning management
  • Oleeo for applicant tracking and recruitment workflows
• Provide engineering leadership across a wide set of integrated specialist platforms, including systems such as:
  • Avature, Criterion, TalentBrew, Invenias, HireVue, SAP Fieldglass, 10x and Rare in recruitment
  • Oracle HelpDesk / CRM and Anana in colleague interaction
  • PAM Group, Gallagher, Capita, Legal & General, Reward Gateway, Salary Finance, Equiniti, Zenith and Terryberry in reward and wellbeing
  • SAP WPB, GoodPractice and Guider in learning and development
  • OASIS, OrgVue, Oracle Business Intelligence, ETS and Hallmark PAMS across document management, organisation modelling, analytics and colleague services
• Be accountable for the large number of integrations, interfaces and data exchanges across this estate, including flows between HR, payroll, workforce management, identity and access management, finance, reporting and third-party providers.
• Ensure systems and integrations are secure, reliable, observable and supportable, with clear ownership, support models, runbooks and service measures.
• Drive strong engineering practices across architecture, documentation, testing, continuous integration and continuous delivery, production operations, incident management and service ownership.
• Simplify legacy technology, reduce unnecessary complexity and manage technical debt across a multi-vendor environment.
• Shape pragmatic target architectures, including improved application programming interface and event-driven integration patterns where they are the right fit.
• Work closely with stakeholders across HR and Technology to shape roadmaps, prioritise risk, and make technical trade-offs visible.

Qualifications

• Experience leading multiple engineering teams through managers in a complex software environment.
• A strong track record of improving engineering quality, service reliability and delivery performance across business-critical systems.
• Significant experience managing integration-heavy estates with many third‑party platforms, suppliers, interfaces and operational dependencies.
• Strong knowledge of application programming interfaces, middleware, event‑driven architecture, third‑party SaaS platforms, vendor management and production support models.
• Experience working in HR, payroll, workforce management, finance or other corporate platform domains is valuable.
• A leadership style that values clarity, simplicity, ownership and high engineering standards.

Benefits

• 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.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best.

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