Software Development Manager

Our software helps vets treat patients, researchers run studies and students learn their profession. We're looking for someone to lead the team behind it.

The Royal Veterinary College develops, integrates and supports the digital systems that underpin clinical care, research and teaching across our university and hospitals. As Software Development Manager, you'll lead a small, experienced team of developers and a UI/UX designer, and act as product owner for the systems the team looks after, whether built in-house or delivered by our partners.

This is a role with real breadth. One day you might be working through a release plan with clinicians, the next reviewing an architecture decision or pairing with a developer on a tricky integration. You'll have the autonomy to shape how the team plans, builds and ships, and the backing to grow it.

Product ownership:
- Set the vision and roadmap for the systems in the team's care, making sure they deliver what the College needs
- Spend time with the people who use our systems, understand how they work, and turn that into clear, prioritised work for the team
- Plan releases and deployments, and keep stakeholders informed with clear, regular reporting
- Help appraise new products and platforms, bringing recommendations to IT groups and project boards on feasibility, risk and opportunity

Leading the team:
- Line manage and support a team of three
- Set technical direction and champion modern engineering practice across testing, code review, CI/CD and documentation
- Choose and embed the tools that help the team plan and deliver, such as Jira or Azure DevOps
- Explore how AI tools can support the team's work, and help colleagues use them well

Staying hands-on:
- Design and build software in ASP.NET Core, C# and SQL Server
- Design and maintain integrations between our own systems, third-party platforms and SaaS products, using APIs and message-based architectures
- Lead on incidents, making sure what we learn shapes what we build next

Essential requirements:
- Experience leading or line managing a software team
- Experience as a product owner, or in a similar role bridging users, stakeholders and developers
- Confidence building roadmaps, planning releases and reporting to non-technical audiences
- Strong commercial experience with ASP.NET Core, C# and SQL Server
- Experience building integrations using RESTful APIs and message-based architectures
- Good working knowledge of Git, automated testing and CI/CD
- A clear communicator who can explain technical decisions simply and represent users' needs to developers

Desirable:
- Experience with Jira, Azure DevOps or similar delivery tooling
- Experience integrating or working with SaaS platforms and their suppliers
- Practical experience of AI-assisted development
- Angular, TypeScript, NgRx and RxJS
- Ionic and Capacitor
- Docker
- SignalR or other real-time technologies
- Event sourcing, CQRS or Elasticsearch
- Experience in a university, hospital, laboratory or clinical setting

Benefits:
- A nominal 35-hour working week
- 30 days annual leave, plus bank holidays and 3-4 additional days when the University closes over Christmas
- Membership of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) with a current 14.5% employer contribution and 6.1% employee contribution (20.6% combined rate)
- Hybrid working, supporting a healthy work-life balance

This is a hybrid role based at the Hawkshead Campus in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. Occasional out-of-hours or weekend support may be needed if one of the systems has an incident.