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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Head of Software Development - **Company:** Tesco PLC - **Location:** Welwyn Garden City, UK - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Cursor (Graphical User Interface Elements), Programming Tools, Github, Cisco Nexus Switches, Systems Development Life Cycle, Software Engineering, SonarQube, Virtual Agents - **Published:** September 18, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.diversifying.io/jobs/600159014-head-of-software-development-at-tesco-uk ## About the Role * Proven experience of leading geographically disparate teams and managing managers. * Ability to shape strategic direction; deal with ambiguity and operate autonomously in a fast-evolving space making timely decisions without perfect data and be able to operate in an intent-based way vs seeking approval. * Strong ability to make decisions that balance multiple, often conflicting factors. * Excellent communication and influencing skills downwards, across and upwards. * Proven experience in managing significant vendor relationships, evaluating offerings and working effectively with procurement and legal teams. * Strong understanding of budgets, forecasts and the economics of software development activity and agentic AI. * Experience of working in an organisation that values product-led and data-led problem definition and discovery. * A solid understanding of all aspects of a typical SDLC and opinions on where AI can have the biggest impact. * Prior experience as a hands-on software engineer which allows you to have a strong understanding and empathy of engineers' needs and views. * Experience in leading teams who 'run what they build', managing effective operational support and on-call engineers. * Ideally: prior experience of working in a developer experience, platform engineering or similar role. Skills: * You are naturally curious and have built up expertise with agentic coding tools such as Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode or Cursor but you have a bias towards solving problems not dogmatic solutions. * Ability to keep knowledge up to date through effective building of networks, data sources and ability to identify and distil key trends and directions and then apply context to how you interpret them. * Strong system design and architecture skills and instincts. * Exceptional people management skills including how to manage talent and performance and grow the people around you. ## Description Reporting to the Director of Engineering Effectiveness and Capability, you will lead teams that focus on overall developer experience, developer tooling and will lead our efforts to evolve how software engineering is done in the world of agentic AI. You'll play a key role in shaping strategy as well as driving execution. You'll provide thought leadership through keeping your knowledge and expertise in agentic coding up to date through continual evaluation of new technologies and practices and be able to balance pace of delivery with the need to be secure, resilient and prudent. The impact of your work will be felt by over 2,500 software engineers., The above information is a shortened summary, refer to our policies for full details You will be responsible for * Budget ownership, partnership and commercial relationships with existing suppliers in the developer tooling and agentic coding space. Continual evaluation of new tools and build vs buy decisions. * The ongoing evolution and operational excellence of our key developer tools such as GitHub, SonarQube Nexus and others that support software development activities. * Key input into the definition and continual evolution of the strategy for how our SDLC evolves in the light of Agentic AI. * Accountability and leadership to execute how agentic AI is enabled for development teams. * Thought leadership across the whole Technology organisation around Agentic AI for coding and other aspects of the SDLC. * Overall ownership of developer experience including gathering quantitative and qualitative data, driving insight and identifying areas of opportunity. ## Related Videos - [Innovating Developer Tools with AI: Insights from GitHub Next](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1268-innovating-developer-tools-with-ai-insights-from-github-next) - [Automated Code Quality Checks with Custom SonarQube Rules](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/428-automated-code-quality-checks-with-custom-sonarqube-rules) - [Guiding Agentic AI with Vue](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/2033-guiding-agentic-ai-with-vue) - [Why optimizing for system comprehension is key to implementing AI for software development](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100210-why-optimizing-for-system-comprehension-is-key-to-implementing-ai-for-software-development) - [Bringing AI Model Testing and Prompt Management to Your Codebase with GitHub Models](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1536-bringing-ai-model-testing-and-prompt-management-to-your-codebase-with-github-models) - [Inside Mercedes-Benz: How CIO Katrin Lehmann is Empowering 5,000 Developers and Driving Digital Change](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1360-inside-mercedes-benz-how-cio-katrin-lehmann-is-empowering-5-000-developers-and-driving-digital-change) ## Related Articles - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [What is Software Engineering in the Age of AI?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/640-what-is-software-engineering-in-the-age-of-ai) - [Coffee with Developers - Maria Apazoglou - Making AI understandable for all in production](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/475-coffee-with-developers-maria-apazoglou-making-ai-understandable-for-all-in-production) - [Dev Digest 120 - Apple and peers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/455-dev-digest-120-apple-and-peers) - [What is Agentic Programming and Why Should Developers Care?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/625-what-is-agentic-programming-and-why-should-developers-care) - [How software is steering vehicle technology](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/515-how-software-is-steering-vehicle-technology)