Action Sustainability are a sustainability business powered by technology. We are seeking a Head of Technology to join our senior leadership team to develop and implement a technology strategy that enables our business goals. We are a growing SME business with the ambition to triple our size and impact in two years. 80% of our £4.5m turnover is through our two cloud-based software systems; Supply Chain Sustainability School and Sustainability Tool. Furthermore, with the majority of our team working remotely, all our service delivery is reliant on technology.
The hired candidate will ensure our technology strategy and technology stack maximises our ability to grow, minimises our exposure to technology risk, future-proofs our business from data & cyber security compliance, increases collaboration across technology teams, and provides new technology-led business opportunities. We are looking for someone with programming expertise, who whilst leading on technology strategy could immerse themselves in the code base should the need arise.
The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate a track record of how they have used technology to achieve business goals. The technology strategy should cover our operations and product offerings.
Background to Action Sustainability
Action Sustainability is a leading consultancy whose mission is to inspire sustainable business. Our customers are significant blue-chip organisations who understand that most of their sustainability impacts lie in their supply chains. They know they need to manage and reduce these impacts but don’t have the tools and skills to educate and performance manage their supply chains. That’s where we can help.
Our team comprises 50 full and part time employees and associates. Many of our clients are sector leaders on sustainability and supply chain issues and we are proud of our reputation for leading the thinking in this area. In summary, we:
- Support clients to use our Sustainability Tool, as well as topic-specific iterations such as the Carbon Calculator, to report their progress on sustainability actions.
- Run the award-winning Supply Chain Sustainability School, including the industry-leading Fairness, Inclusion & Respect (FIR) programme.
- Provide bespoke, specialist business advice, training, and practical tools through our consultancy to leading organisations such as Siemens, the Houses of Parliament, Warwick University, the NHS and British Land.
- Led the authoring of the ISO 20400 in sustainable procurement and are now leading global adoption through our social enterprise arm, Action Sustainability CIC and our commercial consultancy services.
Action Sustainability is an accredited Living Wage employer and accredited with the “One to Watch” status by the Best Companies survey. We are committed to maintaining a respectful and inclusive workplace culture and welcome applications from all people with relevant skills, knowledge and experience, including those from diverse and under-represented backgrounds. We have made a pledge to be net zero.
Required technical skills & experience
Applicants should be able to demonstrate skills and experience in the following:
- Recruiting, managing and developing an IT team that has successfully developed web-based business solutions.
- Full-stack development to guide on technology infrastructure across our two core product offerings.
- Technology trends to identify new business opportunities.
- Data & cyber security to advise the business on compliance and future-proofing our technology stack.
- User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) to improve the uptake and engagement of our offerings.
- General IT project management, including Sprint planning, ticket management via Jira, automated testing of frontend application, etc.
Preferred knowledge
The below is a list of our technology stack across two major products. We do not expect applicants to have experience in all of the following:
- PHP language applied to learning management environments (ideally Moodle).
- React Javascript (ES6) Single Page Application designing and development.
- Python 3.x and Django 3.x (especially the Django Rest Framework and Django ORM) for backend server-side services and APIs SQL Database management (PostgreSQL) – schemas, writing migrations (via Python ORM), and other such database tasks.
- API clients in other languages and frameworks such as:
- Office Javascript API.
- Jupyter Notebook.
- Python Celery for asynchronous task management.
- Docker and Containerisation.
- Amazon Web Services: primarily EC2, S3, SES, EFS, Route53.
- CI/CD pipelines (currently Jenkins but may change) for automated build to docker images and deployment.
- Git and code management to write, review and manage pull-requests, mergers.
Management skills & experience
Applicants should be able to demonstrate the following skills and experience:
- Ability to manage and develop a technology team.
- Relentless focus on meeting customer needs.
- A passion for sustainability.
- Commercial acumen.
- Strong attention to detail.
- Show robust logical thinking.
- Excellent communication and customer service skills.
- Good time management skills and aptitude to multitask.
- A demonstrable understanding of user experience and product roadmaps.
- Willingness to work in a dynamic, flexible environment within a small but highly influential business.
Reporting to: Ian Heptonstall, Managing Director
Terms and Conditions
- Salary: £80,000 – £100,000 dependent on experience
- Holidays: 25 days plus 8 statutory holidays plus 1 day for birthday
- Pension: 8% contribution to pension
- Bonuses: Company bonus scheme operates
- Location: We are a flexible employer with most of our team choosing to work remotely. We provide office amenities in Old Street, London
- Development: We offer the opportunity to grow in this award-winning organisation with the support of leading experts and innovative practices.
Applications
Start date of advert: 20.02.2023
End date of advert: 27.03.2023
Anticipated job commencement date: 01.06.2023
Interested applicants should send their CV and accompanying letter through the Recruitment Revolutions portal.
