VP, Software Engineering

At National Grid in the US, we own and operate electricity and gas transmission and distribution networks across our New York and New England business units, with over 5 million customers across our businesses.

We are looking for a Vice President to lead Software Engineering across all of our US operations, responsible for leading and building engineering teams to create seamless operations and customer experiences through technology solutions while delivering against our vision for a clean, fair, and affordable energy future. The role reports to the Chief Information and Digital Officer of the NY and US Electric & Gas businesses.

We are experiencing significant transformation within our business, due to digital and technological advances and the decarbonization of energy. In this context, technology is a strategic accelerator as we look to profit from business opportunities these changes will create.

The person in post will define the technical vision and strategy to accelerate the growth and transformation of our technology landscape. This is a broad, impactful leadership role, working on critical systems, with $1bn of investment in new platforms in the coming years. The person in post will have both operational responsibilities and strategic reach, and will be adept at navigating both areas.

The person will also lead and build engineering teams, providing technical leadership and mentoring, and creating a high-performing delivery environment, using technology to develop and redesign processes.

• Act as the "Chief Engineer" who can go deep and engage on technology at all levels of the engineering organization
• Work closely with the product, architecture, and functional partner leadership to design, manage, and execute product roadmaps
• Work with the security team to ensure software is effectively secured and that risks are mitigated
• Utilize AI to both accelerate the speed of the engineering team in their development work and also deploy into business unit operational processes to improve operational delivery and experience
• Champion the cultural change of speed to rapid deployment
• Ensure software performs well in production and meets SLAs
• Lead software engineering teams and other stakeholders to set goals for improving code quality, maintainability, security, and scalability. Monitor progress against these goals
• Manage the software engineering budget, with ongoing focus on personnel, vendor, and capital expenditures
• Champion best practices and modern software development methods and tools
• Implement and manage software development status reporting, metrics, and benchmarks
• Oversee management of relationships with consultants, vendors, and contractors and support negotiation of statements of work and business terms with suppliers
• Foster a culture of innovation and technology passion. Build an engineering organization that leads business outcomes
• Provide leadership, vision and direction for the software engineering organization to successfully deliver against business outcomes
• Attract, develop, motivate, and retain talent, as well as ensure the software engineering staff has the skills and capabilities to meet business needs

• Senior technology executive with strong experience across software development and engineering leadership
• The ability to go deep into the technical side, as well as being organization-focussed, forward-looking, and innovative
• Strong experience in large-scale tech transformation
• Able to drive culture change and create high-performing delivery environments, bringing in new ways of thinking
• A strong track record of team leadership and development
• Experience in large, complex, corporate environments

Salary: Circa $240,000 - $360,000 a year.
Candidates will be assessed and provided offers against the minimum qualifications of this role and their individual experience.

Location: the role can be based anywhere in our service area (New York or Massachusetts), or remotely in a neighboring state (CT, NJ, PA). The team are located across the service area, and the person will need to travel around 20% of the time.

National Grid is an equal opportunity employer that values a broad diversity of talent, knowledge, experience and expertise. We foster a culture of inclusion that drives employee engagement to deliver superior performance to the communities we serve. National Grid is proud to be an affirmative action employer. We encourage minorities, women, individuals with disabilities and protected veterans to join the National Grid team.

#LI-RH