Engineering Roles

At Co-op, our engineers come in different seniorities, in addition to the disciplines. Our seniorities start from those at the beginning of their career, to those at the top of their game, now enabling others (1-6).

Here’s more information about the different disciplines in Engineering:

Software Engineers

Our makers. Our Engineers design, build, and operate the software-intensive products and services which support our members, stores, operations, and services.

They might work on back-end microservices in the cloud, or mobile apps, on web apps for colleagues, or integration with tills in stores. Full stack, they are able to work with specialist frontend engineers on UI’s.

They also work in close collaboration with specialists in platform engineering to share dev/ops responsibility for the quality attributes of their systems.

No engineer takes sole responsibility for work, they do peer review, pair programming, or ensemble (aka “mob”) work.

Platform Engineers

We provide the plumbing.

Our Platform Engineers work hand in hand with our Engineers using software defined approaches to design, build and operate the infrastructure that our software products run on top of.

We ensure the systems they rely on provide the security, resilience and performance required to deliver the applications our Co-op relies on.

Quality Analysts/Coaches

Our quality coaches. Our QAs are quality experts who work in and around our teams to help them build quality in.

They get involved early in the development cycle to bring richness and shape to the problems to be solved by asking questions such as “what if…?”, “Have you considered this scenario…?“ and “how likely could that be…?”.

They may have automated or manual testing skills but these only form a small part of their role.

Our QAs are not gatekeepers at the end of the development cycle, they work with all members of the team to make sure quality is built into the whole process to ensure we have great outcomes.

Frontend Engineers

Our experience champions. As our front-end specialists they work closely to bridge design and engineering to ensure our products are usable, accessible and consistent.

They bring their skills to the team to help others write, scalable CSS and semantic HTML. Their understanding of browser APIs and the DOM help to build modular and tested JavaScript, whether that is using ES standard or frameworks like React. They have a working knowledge of the web, browsers and the devices they run on. And can measure the impact of performance and quality across those experiences.

 Our front-end engineers work daily within product teams but they also contribute to community projects like our design system, component library or standards.

Leadership Roles

Beyond the engineering roles are a limited number of those in Engineering Leadership under the Head of Engineering (which sits in Technology, under the Chief Technology Officer).

In addition to the Head of Engineering, Chief Engineer and the Engineering Practice Lead, we also have:

Engineering Managers

You are the line manager of a number of engineers at all levels across all disciplines. As their career coach you are responsible for their pastoral care, for supporting their career development, and for equipping them to be effective in teams.

You work with the other local leaders in a business area to make sure that product teams are staffed with appropriate numbers of engineers and the right balance of skills and capabilities. As a technical expert, you work with a business area and their product teams as a technical coach.

 You’re responsible for the quality of the engineers who join us, by designing the recruitment strategy and process, in addition to performing interviews and training up the hiring team.

 As part of the leadership of the technology function you take part in strategic planning, helping to agree the goals of the department and executing plans to meet them.

Delivery Principals

You are the leader for Engineering in a given business area, responsible for making sure there is the right capacity and capability to deliver against the local roadmaps. You are also part of building the roadmaps working with the local leaders of other disciplines.

You guide delivery across the different teams ensuring that the right conversations are happening and troubleshooting where needed both in terms of teams and technology.

You are responsible for ensuring that the right governance is happening in your area and that a good level of quality is maintained.

You have different depths of technical expertise, as well as breadth. You have expertise in one of the engineering disciplines, but also credibility in the others. Strong experience in system delivery and dealing with the stakeholders around it.

 The aim is to have a Delivery Principal in each Business Area.

Discipline Principals

Discipline Principal – An expert in your field, you own the technology strategy for your discipline promoting and championing it across Coop.

You have the respect and trust of your community, leading by example and demonstrating the benefits of good practice. You provide the space and thought leadership to start the sparks for new ideas. You drive the creation of standards, patterns and practices for your discipline and use your influencing skills to ensure they are adopted across the technology landscape.

You head up the enabling part of your discipline, probably as part of a “Platform” Team. You work with the Engineering leadership to align the skills of your community with the technology strategy, ensuring a good recruitment pipeline for your discipline, bringing in new ideas and skills. Growing the profile of the discipline internal and external.

There is only one principal for each discipline.