BORN is looking for a Technology Director to join our award winning digital agency. The successful candidate reports to the Managing Director as part of the senior management team and is responsible for the technical approach, strategy and practice management. The role plays a key part in driving forward technical innovation to keep Pod1 ahead of the pack by providing strong leadership and consultative role to the team related to strategy, architecture and product development. You will work closely with the new business and account management teams by helping them respond to briefs, pitch, translate technical jargon into client-friendly language, analyse client requirements and develop cost-effective solutions.

Three key areas of focus for the role include: Management of the agency Technology practice and Engineering team (including skills assessment, resource capacity, utilization and career growth), Ownership of Off-shore practice and process (from the ground up), and creation of Quality Assurance function within the entire agency.



MUST HAVES
Significant experience (7-10 years) in a technical leadership role, particularly in a web/digital agency environment
Should have a minimum of 3 – 5 years of Technical/Product architecture experience preferably in ecommerce
Must have a significant experience working with 1 of the following: Magento, Demandware or Hybris e-commerce platforms.


KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Keep abreast of the latest developments in technology and e-commerce to deliver continuous improvements in our technical capabilities and contribute fresh ideas to our business strategy.
Provide assistance to the business development and account management teams with the technical aspects of projects, proposals and contracts – including recommendations for changes to current systems based on technical developments, and assistance with the preparation and presentation of pitches.
Analyze the client’s needs, ensuring that they fit with objectives and quality standards, and can be delivered with the available resources and budget.
Work closely with the rest of the business to develop and deliver a technology strategy
Deliver high quality IT services both internally and externally.
Oversee the overall technical development process and ensure the appropriate interfaces between the various teams involved exist.
Direct line-manage the Technical Development Manager and Infrastructure Manager and provide high-level leadership for their teams
Evaluate current IT infrastructure, identify technologies and initiate projects designed to improve security, scalability and reliability of the web related products.
Develop both the people and processes within the technical team to react to the challenges and to the changing nature of the business
SKILLS
Experience working with open source LAMP platforms, particularly PHP and mySQL, and the use and/or creation of third party libraries and frameworks
Strong people management and communication skills – verbal and written – specifically an ability to write clear concise proposals, reports and presentations.
Good team player who can work with people of all levels / backgrounds
Self-motivated and analytical thinker; sees solutions rather than obstacles
Experience with hosting platforms and network operations
Experience with account management, third party contractual agreements, client management & pre-sales, client reporting and up-selling
Experience of defining and managing the scope of projects.
Experience of chairing meetings, regular reporting, technical sales support and helping to produce budgets
Ability to lead, organize and execute with little or no direction, deliver commitments on time and within budget, and to work in a team within a fast pace environment
Strong experience driving technical strategy/road mapping
Architecture, design, build, deploy experience with Hybris Commerce product
Expertise in Management Center & Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Solr / Endeca
Expert on associated technologies like Spring/Hibernate/EJB
Capable of working in Design Phase identifying the suitable OOTB functionalities
Identify gaps between OOTB and Customization
Strong Application Server & Commerce troubleshooting and problem solving skills
Presales support in solutions and estimates
Knowledge of project management tools, bug tracking (such as JIRA, Trac, Bugzilla, Wiki, etc.)
Degree educated


DESIRABLES
Experience with both simple (WordPress) and enterprise (ATG Dynamo) content management systems
Knowledge of internal IT systems and infrastructures such as backups, email, windows and mac desktops and networking
Reasonable experience as a developer
An understanding of architectural design and implementation of high profile applications
Experience architecting and delivering complex enterprise applications to multiple customers through multiple releases.
Exposure to sales, account management or business development