Tech Lead / Architect

Overview

Switch, the Platinum Sitecore implementation partner and award winning agency is seeking a bright, energetic, Sitecore Technical / Architect Lead to join our growing agency. The successful candidate will have proven experience in the enterprise digital solutions space. As a Sitecore Technical Lead / Architect at Switch, you will play a critical role in helping Switch with delivering successful outcomes and value for our customers.

Main Duties & Responsibilities

• Governing the technical discovery, design and execution of a project to ensure projects are developed according to best practice and are in line with Switch development standards and conducted in an efficient and profitable manner
• Planning project delivery in alignment with the project’s commercial terms and using the standardised Switch Methodology in conjunction with both the Customer Team and the Strategist & Project Manager
• Being a leader inside customer teams and contributing to the company’s plans for its customers
• Working with the Technical Director and Project Managers to maximise the efficiency , quality and utilisation of all delivery teams
• Assist Project and Account Managers in relaying technical complexity to customers in a non technical manner
• Providing direction on all technical aspects, facilitating with the Technical Director, of a project or solution such as: Scoping and estimating project related tasks Defining system architecture Defining acceptance criteria
• Identifying and recording risks, issues, actions dependencies & decisions (RAID) for projects which includes communication and execution of planned mitigation steps and raising to Project Manager
• Identifying, documenting and resolving application issues and outages in and out of office hours
• Collaborating with project managers, experience design, solution architects, technical leads and clients
• Reviewing all technical deliverables completed by the project team
• Design and develop software solutions to solve complicated problems through the application of design patterns and principles
• Ensuring that all technical designs meet the overall requirements of the project
• Documenting system architecture and technical designs
• Task delegation to senior developers
• Mentoring senior developers
• Identifying conflicts between team members and disciplines raising to the Technical Director
• Participating in pre-sales and sales activities
• Contributing to and conducting team meetings
• Code reviews
• Able to work and troubleshoot autonomously
• Applying Switch methodology standards to projects and contributing to on-going continuous improvement activities for the methodology and internal processes

Qualifications

Sitecore Developer Certification is desirable, but not necessary.

Experience

Essential

• Able to provide a clear trusted technical voice to both internal and external customers
• Able to perform technical discovery, solution design and project execution to a high level of quality
• Able to contribute to planning discussions at both a tactical as well as a strategic level
• Minimum of 6 years of software development experience using Sitecore either with an agency or within the industry
• Minimum of 2 years experience using HTML and CSS
• Minimum of 1 year of writing code using JavaScript

Desirable

• Experience with Sitecore PowerShell
• Experience with Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA)
• Experience with Sitecore Experience Commerce (SXC) (Versions 8.1 - 9.1)
• Experience using alternative CMS solutions such as Umbraco, Kentico, EpiServer, AEM, WordPress.
• Experience with DevOps using one or more of the following : TeamCity*, Octopus*, VSTS and Jenkins
• Experience with front-end frameworks such as Vue, React or Angular
• Experience using SASS
• Experience using TypeScript
• Experience using NodeJS, and NodeJS task runners such as Gulp or Grunt
• Experience using scripting languages (eg. PowerShell)
• 2+ years experience with unit testing practices and methodologies
• Experience setting up, configuring and maintaining infrastructure
• On Premise
• Cloud (Azure, AWS, GCP)

* preferred

Skills

We’re looking for the following skills and experience:

Essential

• Able to write code applying best practice security principles (protecting against XSS, DDoS, SQL Injection attacks)
• Able to write code using the following design principles (SOLID, YAGNI, KISS and DRY)
• Able to write code that uses software design patterns
• 6+ years of experience in successfully implementing web development projects in complex, fast-moving environments using agile & blended approaches for a Digital Agency or Professional Services organisation
• In-depth understanding of Agile & Traditional SDLCs and an appreciation of how these can be blended to tailor delivery to suit the needs of individual projects
• Implementing digital solutions based on CMS & eCommerce platforms
• Excellent oral and written communication
• A balanced business & technical background and comfortable managing senior stakeholders from either domain
• Facilitating team planning and estimation using Scrum
• Good understanding of the use of traditional project management artefacts (schedules. RAID log etc) and how these complement agile tools
• Creating professional documentation using MS Office and Google Apps
• Requirements Workshop Facilitation
• Excellent time management skills

Desirable

• Understanding of Infrastructure Delivery
• Good understanding of Sitecore XM/XP and XC
• Solid working knowledge of general networking and web concepts (SSL, APIs, HTTP, CORS)
• Awareness of Digital & Technology Trends

Performance Goals

Essential

• Deliver projects on time and on budget that employ the Switch methodology
• In conjunction with the Project Manager, facilitate the delivery of a stable or increasing standardised velocity (ie. points per resource-day) with velocity remaining stable or increasing when measured across any four-sprint period once the baseline has been established
• Estimates must have an accuracy rate of 80% (+/- 20%)
• Contribute towards Switch internal tools / software / methodology / processes
• Project technical deliverables are completed to an acceptable level of quality and in accordance with the project management plan and;
• Realisation of project technical outcomes are as defined in the system design and architecture and;
• Project technical documentation is accepted by process owners, subject matter experts and project management and;
• The technical scope, design and timeline of the project are communicated and visible to stakeholders and to other streams as required

Desirable

• Attain / Maintain Sitecore MVP status
• 3+ blog posts relating to Sitecore or implementations using Sitecore
• Complete at least: 2 training courses in current discipline or any of the companies disciplines, or... Read 2 books in current discipline or any of the companies disciplines providing evidence by way of presentation or show and tell either to the company or within team meetings