Head of Digital Engineering - Interim

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Company Description

At Frasers Group we're rethinking retail. Through digital innovation and unique store experiences, we're serving our consumers with the world's best sports, premium and luxury brands globally. As a leader in the industry, we're elevating the retail experience for our consumers through our collection of established brands, including Sports Direct, FLANNELS, USC, Frasers, and GAME.

Why join us?

Our mission- we are building the worlds most admired and compelling brand ecosystem

Our purpose - we are elevating the lives of the many with access to the world's best brands and experiences

At Frasers Group, we fear less and do more. Our people are forward thinkers who are driven to operate outside of their comfort zone to change the future of retail, embracing challenges along the way. The potential to elevate your career is massive, the experience unrivalled. To be able to make the most of it you need to live and breathe our principles:

• Think without limits - Think fast, think fearlessly, and take the team with you
• Own it and back yourself - Own the basics, own your role and own the results
• Be relevant - Relevant to our people, our partners and the planet

Are you ready to join the Fearless?

Job Description

This role is a 12-18 month fixed term contract and will required on site presence 2/3 days a week at our Shirebrook HQ.

The Head of Digital Engineering will play a critical role at Frasers Group. As we undergo significant transformation across our digital platforms, we seek an experienced leader to drive our Digital Engineering strategy. You will lead a transformation program focused on enhancing the agility and efficiency of our department while also growing our eCommerce platform. A vital aspect of this role is leading the engineering team through a large-scale MACH architecture and composable commerce transformation program. This requires both technical expertise and strong leadership to navigate the complexities.

Check out this article from the Retail Gazette outlining our ambitious digital transformation plans Frasers Group overhauls company-wide digital infrastructure - Retail Gazette

Key Objectives:

• Lead the transformation and modernisation of our eCommerce platform, ensuring scalability, robustness, and the ability to handle high transaction volumes.
• Develop and maintain product and technical roadmaps aligned with company goals and evolving industry trends, driving innovation in solution design.
• Provide strong leadership and organisation across engineering teams, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, professional development, and high performance.
• Implement and enhance development processes that meet stringent quality, security, and scalability standards.
• Collaborate with teams across the business, such as Retail, Warehouse, Commercial, and other key departments to ensure seamless delivery of technical solutions that align with overall business objectives, maintaining a solid focus on MACH principles .

Responsibilities:

Lead End-to-End eCommerce Solutions: Create and implement eCommerce solutions that meet business objectives, adhere to technical requirements, and conform to industry standards, with detailed architecture blueprints, technical specifications, and integration plans.

Technology Evaluation and Innovation: Stay ahead of industry trends, evaluate emerging technologies, and recommend scalable, high-performance solutions tailored to business needs. This includes an emphasis on MACH architecture and composable commerce principles .

Team Leadership: Provide technical leadership and guidance to cross-functional teams-including developers, designers, and business analysts-ensuring collaboration to convert business requirements into scalable, effective technical solutions.

Performance Optimisation: Enhance the performance, scalability, and reliability of eCommerce solutions by identifying bottlenecks, implementing caching strategies, and improving system responsiveness, especially in high-traffic environments.

Security and Compliance: Ensure the systems adhere to industry security standards, implement safeguards against vulnerabilities, and comply with PCI DSS and GDPR standards .

Quality Assurance and Governance: Establish quality assurance processes to maintain high standards in software development, conducting code reviews, performance testing, and user acceptance testing. Maintain coding standards and promote software quality across the engineering team.

Technical Documentation and Upskilling: Oversee technical documentation, architecture diagrams, and user guides. Lead knowledge transfer and training, ensuring the team is equipped with modern skills and practices, especially in MACH architecture and cloud-native development.

Continuous Improvement: Drive initiatives to enhance development processes, tooling, and automation. Proactively identify opportunities to streamline workflows, optimise system performance, and improve the user experience.

Transitioning to Modern Practices: Facilitate the upskilling of teams as they transition to MACH-based and composable commerce architectures, leading training efforts and fostering technical growth.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of relevant work experience in software development.
• 10+ years of management experience leading diverse engineering teams.
• Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Proven Experience in leading a large-scale MACH architecture and composable commerce transformation program, guiding engineering teams through transformative digital changes.
• Deep understanding of DevOps and Agile methodologies, with the ability to implement and advocate for cross-functional squads, continuous integration, delivery pipelines, and high levels of automation
• A track record of leading high-performing software development teams, with extensive experience in modernising and scaling digital platforms.
• Strong technical expertise in software design, cloud-based solutions, and development methodologies, with specific knowledge of MACH principles and microservices architectures
• Leadership and organisational skills to manage large, distributed teams, fostering collaboration and maintaining a high-performance standard.
• Proficiency in cloud-native solutions and composable commerce architectures, with a deep knowledge of technologies like JavaScript (ES6+), React, Node.js, NoSQL/SQL databases, GraphQL/REST APIs, and microservices architecture.
• Demonstrated ability to set and maintain coding standards, oversee code reviews, and ensure software quality across teams.
• Strong communication skills to influence and engage technical and non-technical stakeholders, ensuring alignment between technical objectives and business goals.
• Experience managing third-party suppliers, offshore teams, and contractors.
• A security-first mindset ensures systems comply with industry regulations such as PCI DSS and GDPR.

Additional Information

Along with your benefits package we also offer a wide range of perks for our colleagues:

Reward, Recognition and Opportunities

Frasers Champion- Our employees are at the heart of our business and we ensure individuals are recognised every single month for their hard work. Frasers Champion is a peer nominated scheme where 8 winners will receive double their pay for a month where they have thought without limits, owned it or been relevant.

Fearless 1000 - By October 2025, we want our share price to hit £10. If that happens for 30 or more consecutive trading days, all colleagues across the business will receive a bonus! The top 1000 performers in the company will receive unprecedented bonuses, worth from £50,000 to £1million! Senior leaders across the business nominate these performers twice a year for embodying our core values and delivering exceptional performance*.

*subject to terms and conditions

Frasers Festival - an event like no other! Our Frasers Festival is our celebration for Head Office and Retail Staff across the UK and Europe - hosting a MEGA brand village, guest speakers from the world's biggest brands, evening entertainment, the ultimate Frasers Fearless Fitness Challenge and much more.

CEO Sessions - Once a quarter we offer 20 employees the opportunity to attend our "CEO Sessions" ran by our CEO and leadership team. Employees have the chance to connect, network and submit questions around specific topics such as our Sports or Luxury business.

Retail Reconnect - In order to build the planets most admired and compelling brand ecosystem, all employees must understand our business, product and customers. Each financial year, Head Office employees will gain insights by spending two days in one of our stores or the Warehouse. The goal is to learn how the work you do impacts our teams on the frontline, and to bring ideas back to the office which will improve how we work.

Employee Welfare

Frasers Fit - Our Everlast Gyms Team are on a mission to make our workforce the best, and fittest on the planet! We run free gym classes for employees as well as discounted memberships to our clubs. Frasers Fit is our wellbeing programme which aims to support and improve colleagues Physical, Financial & Mental wellbeing. The app is accessible for every employee and includes training, nutrition and lifestyle advice- all completely free.

Retail Trust - We know that its not just about physical health, mental wellness is equally important which is why all of our employees get free access and support from the Retail Trust charity. This includes a 24 hour wellbeing helpline, wellness hub, counselling and financial/legal support.

What's next?

Our Recruitment Team will be reviewing applications and all candidates will receive a response, whether you are successful or unsuccessful. Shortlisted applicants may be asked to confirm a few key details before being booked in for a first stage interview with the Recruiter- this will be behaviourally focussed and centred around how you align with our Culture and Values. If successful we anticipate two further interview stages with the Hiring Manager/wider team which will be more technically focussed and could include a presentation/task so we can see your skills in action.