Frontend Director

Descrizione

We started in 2012, when we noticed a problem: on average, it was taking eight weeks (and a lot of paperwork) for small businesses to apply for a loan. Worse still, more often than not, that process was ending in a ‘no’.

We knew that bakeries, building firms, salons and solicitors deserved better. They deserve to be able to grow – hire more hands, invest in stock, market themselves – without all the hold music and absurdly rigid criteria.

We’ve now been around for a decade

Our mission is to finance 1 million businesses, so still, a long way to go.

And in that time, we’ve:

• grown to a team of 290 iwocans
• worked with over 50,000 small businesses across the UK and Germany
• redesigned the whole business loan process from start to finish – our record is three minutes, 26 seconds.

It’s a good start, but it’s just the beginning. Our mission is help one million businesses who need us, so we still have a long way to go.

Here’s what we’ve learned about lending along the way:

• Technology is the way to change this space

From automated decisions to API integrations, tech has the potential to create the changes small businesses have been waiting for – so we can’t stop innovating.

• Embedded finance is the future

More and more, we’re reaching customers by embedding our loans within the apps and systems they use everyday. Our partners are people like neobanks, online marketplaces and accountancy software companies.

• Payments and credit are converging

Lots of small businesses struggle with cash flow; often getting invoices paid from their customers months after paying their own bills. Loans can help them pay these bills, but we also want to tackle the problem at its root by improving payment terms.

• New products are always possible

We’re working to create new loans of all shapes and sizes, and we’ve recently launched iwocaPay to help with these cash flow conundrums. So what’s next?

We work hard to make iwoca a place where everyone feels welcome - we want everyone to confidently be themselves. For us, diversity isn't an optional add-on. It's the thing that makes us great.

You will be responsible for the frontend output across the entire company in all products. You will work with our senior development team to create and lead iwoca’s frontend tech strategy and vision.

Working closely with the Head of Engineering you continue to build a product focused and engaged team of frontend developers who can realise the commercial goals of the company.

You should have a track record of hiring great frontend developers and scaling teams. You will be responsible for creating a best in class ongoing recruitment process.

Our tech stack covers multiple codebases. Such as a Gatsby static site powered by Contentful. Our codebases currently use React, some based on CRA, plus a selection of state management mechanisms. (Redux/Redux-Saga/react-query/hooks context). Which all interact with a Django monolith via various REST APIs.

The frontend team is currently made up of 10 individuals covering multiple different build teams across the organisation. Some are managers and some individual contributors. We are in the process of scaling this team to at least double this size over the next 6-12 months.

Responsibilities:

• Overall responsibility for the Frontend development across all aspects of the business. From internal tools, to partner portals and direct customer web applications.
• Lead on iwoca’s frontend development strategy and vision
• Create a culture of continuous innovation in Frontend technology
• Maintain technical excellence across all Frontend codebases
• Direct the Frontend Development Guild and it’s goals
• Manage senior managers and individual contributors within the frontend development team.
• Maintain and improve on continuous learning development throughout the team
• Improve knowledge sharing across different build teams
• Keep a balance of consistency across all of our frontend applications whilst using the right tool for the right job.
• Own and improve iwoca’s frontend engineering brand within the industry

Requirements

• Significant experience in managing developers
• Have worked as a hands on developer
• Deep software development experience with specialty in frontend development
• Ability to guide frontend developers to deliver high quality web applications using cutting edge technical methods such latest javascript APIs, service workers, building device agnostic and fully accessible experiences
• Innovation mindset with an understanding of the frontend industry and it’s emerging technology
• Have a high level tech complexity understanding across our entire codebase
• Be commercially aware
• Ability to run projects from spec to delivery
• Proven track record of working collaboratively with backend developers, product managers and designers in multi-discipline teams
• Organised and can get things done
• A management style geared towards supporting, mentoring and growing engineers across the frontend team.
• You care deeply about people, and their success.

Benefits

What’s life like as an iwocan?

We all enjoy:

• Bright, modern office spaces in Fitzrovia & Leeds. We have always supported flexible working however during the current pandemic the majority of iwocans are working from home. We have taken every precaution to keep our offices COVID-19 secure for those that need to use them.
• A calendar of ‘remote friendly’ events each week including Bingo, Comedy Nights, Escape Room challenges
• Two company retreats a year (in places like the French Alps or Spanish seaside)

• Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments
• Virtual Yoga classes every Tuesday and Thursday morning
• An ever-growing number of clubs including climbing, chess, football and boxing
• Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen

Just for you:

• Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership
• We take your well being incredibly seriously, so you’ll have instant access to emotional and mental health support services via our partner Spill
• Share options
• Enhanced maternity and shared parental leave
• A workplace nursery tax benefit scheme. Save £££ on your nursery costs.
• 25 days holiday per year and an extra day off on your birthday
• All the equipment you need to set up your home working space up
• Paid volunteering time for you to support your chosen charity
• Extra leave if you want to travel or study
• Special celebrations for anniversaries and long service including sabbatical
• Flexible working arrangements
• Cycle-to-work scheme

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

• L&D budget including a book budget to encourage you to keep learning
• Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers
• A calendar of meetups we host at our office
• Access to learning platforms like Treehouse if you want to learn to code.