Our client is a growing Australian SaaS business providing a sophisticated enterprise platform to major organisations across the general insurance sector.

As the customer base continues to expand, they are looking for an experienced Technical Consulting Manager to take ownership of a dedicated software development capability responsible for customer integrations, platform extensions and customer-specific feature development.

This is first and foremost a leadership role.

You will directly lead a team of approximately eight software developers, taking responsibility for work allocation, capacity planning, utilisation, capability development and the overall performance of the team.

At the same time, you will bring a strong background in Java software engineering, giving you the technical credibility to review approaches, guide developers through complex problems and represent the engineering capability confidently in customer conversations.

This is not a pure Solution Architect position, nor is it a Senior Java Developer role with some mentoring responsibilities attached.

It is an opportunity for someone who has progressed through software engineering into genuine people and delivery leadership and enjoys operating at the intersection of customers, engineering and delivery.

The role

• The development team operates as a shared capability supporting multiple customers simultaneously.
• Customer requirements can range from relatively small enhancements through to substantial integrations and implementation programmes running over several months.
• You will provide the structure around that capability.
• This includes maintaining visibility of upcoming customer demand, understanding where each developer is allocated, identifying capacity constraints before they become delivery issues and ensuring the team remains effectively utilised against chargeable customer work.
• You will work closely with Delivery Managers and other customer-facing teams to understand what work is approaching, its priority and the skills required to deliver it.
• When several customers are competing for the same engineering capacity, you will be expected to make informed allocation recommendations rather than simply passing the problem elsewhere.
• You will also directly manage the developers themselves.
• That means setting expectations, developing capability, providing feedback, managing performance, creating development opportunities and ensuring less experienced engineers continue to grow.
• As the team develops, you will also help identify and build additional leadership capability within it.

Customer feature delivery

• The team sits outside the core Product Engineering function and focuses specifically on customer development.
• A significant proportion of this work involves integrations and extensions around an established SaaS platform.
• Customers may need the platform to communicate with internal systems, third-party services, rating engines, claims platforms, financial systems or other enterprise applications.
• There will also be situations where a customer requests functionality that could be delivered as a bespoke feature but may not represent the right long-term technical approach.
• You will help determine what should be customer-specific, what should use existing platform capability and where a more reusable solution should be considered.
• This requires someone comfortable talking directly with technical and business stakeholders.
• You should be able to understand the underlying customer problem, challenge a prescribed solution where necessary, explain technical trade-offs clearly and guide the customer towards an approach that is technically sound and commercially sensible.

Leadership and utilisation

A major part of the role is ensuring the development capability operates effectively as a shared, customer-facing resource.

You will:

• Lead and develop a distributed team of approximately eight software developers
• Take responsibility for work allocation across multiple concurrent customer engagements
• Maintain visibility of current and upcoming engineering demand
• Manage capacity and utilisation, with a strong focus on chargeable customer work
• Work with Delivery Managers to prioritise competing requirements and customer commitments
• Match work to developer capability while continuing to develop less experienced engineers
• Identify resource constraints early and recommend practical solutions
• Manage individual performance, development and accountability
• Support recruitment and future growth of the team
• Create an environment where offshore developers operate as an integrated part of the broader business
• Improve delivery efficiency, repeatability and team self-sufficiency over time

Technical leadership

While this is not a role where you will spend the majority of your week writing code, you need to have genuinely come through software engineering.

The environment is heavily Java-based, and you should be technically credible enough to understand what your developers are building, review technical approaches and challenge engineering decisions where appropriate.

You will be expected to contribute to discussions around:

• Java and JVM-based applications
• APIs and enterprise integrations
• REST and SOAP services
• Data integration and transformation
• SQL and relational databases
• Application architecture and design
• Production troubleshooting
• Code quality and engineering standards
• Security, maintainability and scalability
• CI/CD and modern software delivery practices

You do not need to be the strongest developer in the team.

You do need to understand software engineering deeply enough that experienced developers respect your judgement and customers trust you to represent the technical solution.

What we are looking for

You are likely to have started your career as a Software Engineer or Java Developer before moving progressively into technical leadership and people management.

Your current title could be Technical Consulting Manager, Software Engineering Manager, Development Manager, Technical Delivery Manager, Custom Software Engineering Manager, Professional Services Engineering Manager or similar.

More important than the title is the shape of your experience.

Ideally, you will bring:

• A strong professional software engineering background, preferably centred around Java
• Recent experience formally leading software developers
• Direct responsibility for work allocation, capacity planning and team performance
• Experience managing a mix of senior and developing engineers
• Exposure to utilisation, billable engineering resources or comparable commercial delivery metrics
• Strong customer-facing experience within software, SaaS, consulting or professional services
• Experience delivering integrations, APIs and customer-specific software solutions
• Confidence challenging customer requirements when the requested approach is not technically or commercially appropriate
• Experience managing competing priorities across multiple customers or projects
• Strong judgement around when to remain hands-on and when to lead through the team
• Experience improving engineering or delivery efficiency through better processes, automation or tooling
• The communication skills and presence to work effectively with customers, Delivery Managers and senior internal stakeholders

Why consider the opportunity?

This is a chance to take genuine ownership of a software engineering capability rather than simply manage a development squad.

You will have visibility across multiple customers, influence how engineering capacity is deployed and play an important role in how customer-specific development evolves as the business continues to scale.

There is enough technical depth to remain close to engineering, but the opportunity is ultimately about leadership.

If you enjoy developing engineers, making decisions around competing priorities, improving utilisation and delivery performance, and remaining close enough to Java and software architecture to guide complex customer work, this is a role worth exploring.

For a confidential discussion, apply through White Bay or contact the team directly.

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