Head of IT

Head of IT was my move into engineering management proper: owning the engineering roadmap and the wider IT strategy for the business, while leading and growing the team that delivered it.

Leading the team

I line-managed a development team of up to five engineers. That meant regular one-to-ones, performance reviews and individual development planning, alongside coaching the team on technical decision-making, code quality and career progression. I also owned recruitment end-to-end, from defining roles through screening, interviewing and onboarding new engineers.

Owning the roadmap and IT strategy

I owned the engineering roadmap for the bespoke Symfony-based e-commerce platform, sequencing features, technical debt and infrastructure investment against business priorities, and managing delivery through a Kanban workflow. More broadly, I developed the IT strategy for the business, including build-vs-buy decisions and the sequencing of investment. I also reviewed technical proposals from the team and provided architectural direction.

Transforming customer support

I led the transformation of customer support from a shared inbox to a dedicated service-desk platform. I ran the market research and competitor analysis to choose a solution that consolidated email, contact-form and live-chat into a single pane of glass, balancing user needs, cost, integration complexity and long-term scalability. I then planned and led the rollout, working with customer service, IT and senior stakeholders to design processes, migrate data, train staff and manage the change. It improved visibility of demand and cut missed or duplicated contacts.

Staying hands-on

Throughout, I kept hands-on technical credibility: code review, architectural decisions, complex problem-solving, library upgrades in Docker containers, and the initial implementation of Selenium end-to-end tests in Python to strengthen assurance for critical journeys. I also planned and led the migration from GitLab to GitHub Actions, and worked with external parties on PCI and other compliance frameworks.