Software Development Manager

About Acacia Systems:

Supporting the Australian Defence Force since 1992, Acacia is a leading sovereign Australian defence Software and Systems Engineering company that develops advanced mission management systems, tactical support applications and algorithms.

The company maintains a significant depth of skills in the areas of sensor detection, classification, tracking, fusion, data management/transfer, simulation, and environmental modelling. Translating these into robust turn-key deployed systems is achieved through the application of disciplined systems, software, and hardware engineering practice.

The team consists of talented, creative, and highly skilled engineers, scientists and domain experts working closely to turn theory and ideas into future operational systems. Acacia’s products play critical roles in demanding operational environments and reflect the state-of-the-art development in military and dual role operations.

Outline

The role is an integral part of the technology development efforts at Acacia. The Software Development Manager is responsible for managing individuals, teams, scaling, and processes, informed by the needs of projects/products and leadership team directives. 

Essential skills:

• Experience in managing and leading software teams.
• Extensive knowledge and commitment to Agile mindset, behaviours, and supporting frameworks.
• Strong, multi-level stakeholder and relationship management skills.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience in running effective Agile team ceremonies, including stand-ups, showcases, sprint planning, and retrospectives.
• Experience with Software Development lifecycle tools such as Jira.
• A team player with the ability to collaborate with other team members.
• Desire to embrace a servant leadership style in your interactions within the business. 
• Ability to prioritise and manage your time.
• Transparency, honesty, and approachability.

Desirable Skills:

• Awareness and understanding of design thinking and user-centric design principles.
• Experience in running customer workshops to build empathy between teams.
• Knowledge of interface wireframing and prototyping tools, e.g., Figma, Miro etc.
• Software engineering experience e.g., C++, TypeScript etc.
• Collaboration and document management systems such as MS Teams, OpenKM.

About the role

The Software Development Manager is key to facilitating:

• Culture
  • Building empowered, and continuously improving teams by fostering a culture of agility, velocity, and innovation. 
  • Identifying skills needed for project/product teams.
  • Staffing of projects with software engineers of appropriate skills.
• Customer Focus
  • Promoting a positive, customer-centric working culture in the organisation.
  • Working with customers, and key stakeholders to build empathy and shared understanding.
  • Collaborating with Systems Engineering teams to understand user stories and capability requirements.
  • Enhancing input and flow to Software Architects.
• Alignment
  • Ensuring the product team communicates and collaborates smoothly with other cross-functional teams.
  • Coordinating team involvement in brief/back-brief activities with Project Managers and Systems Engineers.
• Flow
  • Helping the product team to deliver the right software to customers faster and more efficiently.
  • Driving a culture of respect, collaboration and solving the right problems in the right way.
  • Ensuring the team has access to the required tools and technology, particularly around productivity, communication, and information exchange (e.g. remote working and virtual whiteboarding).
  • Managing leave requests and respond to other staff circumstances.
• Collaboration 
  • Encouraging cross-team participation and communication across Acacia.
  • Team building, mentoring, professional development, training and supporting career goals.
  • Growing the team around the skill sets required to service prospective projects.
  • Establishing management structure within the software team as expansion requires this.
• Improvement 
  • Establishing internal feedback and metrics to refine process and team cohesion.
  • Monitoring of process efficiency/effectiveness and initiatives to improve as appropriate, working with the Programme Manager.
• Growth 
  • Working closely with HR to grow the team, and support staff welfare and professional development.
  • Organising, attending, and leading interviews.
  • Obtaining sign-off from exec team to present a contract.

Exclusions: 

The Software Development Manager is not responsible for:

• Technical / architectural decision making.
• Anything relating to source code, language features, coding standards, etc.
• Project delivery success (contributes towards this but is not directly responsible).

Relationships:

• Reporting to the Chief Product Officer.
• Working closely with product-aligned Software, Test, DevOps, and Systems Engineering personnel.
• Collaborating across product teams with Project/Product Managers, other Software Development Managers and Acacia Operations Management.

Location:

• The role is on-site at Acacia's Adelaide offices, in Hendon, South Australia (5014), or elsewhere as reasonably directed by Acacia.

Prerequisites:

• Proof of Australian Citizenship and a satisfactory National Police Check.
• Eligibility for Australian Defence Security Clearance.