Organisational Context
This is an exciting opportunity to join a fast paced team who work at the cutting edge of delivering ground-breaking BBC services on new devices and platforms.
The Programmes and On Demand (POD) team in Future Media lead the delivery of the BBC’s services for Television and Radio programmes across BBC’s online, mobile and connected TV platforms.
Two of the six teams in POD are based in Salford. These teams deliver the BBC’s digital and interactive services on TV and mobile devices and platforms.
As we expand BBC Online services from the early adopter to broad mainstream appeal, we are focusing on bringing our products to audiences whenever they want it, regardless of time and location. In the context of a broader strategy that spans PC, TV, and mobile, perhaps the greatest growth will be on devices.
Based in Salford Quays, the Mobile Platforms team will form the engineering centre for building the BBC’s ambition in mobile. The team will build all instances of BBC iPlayer and the BBC’s radio and music products for mobile phones and tablet devices, including app store and mobile web representations. The team will also develop a mobile platform that drives reuse and consistency across all products in the BBC Online portfolio, including BBC News, sport, children, knowledge, and learning.
Aim of the role:
The Head of Mobile Platforms will significantly expand the mobile engineering team in Salford Quays, establish a mobile strategy, and deliver quality mobile products and platforms that delight audiences and lay the foundation atop which the BBC will deliver scalable mobile products for years to come. This role will liaise with product managers across the 10 BBC Online products to define and deliver on the BBC mobile roadmap.
Since Salford Quays is a new location for the BBC, the Head of Mobile Platforms will also form deep engagement with university communities in and around Salford, with the aim of forming and cementing the engineering backbone of the community.
Finally, the role will engage pan-BBC and pan-industry to represent the BBC’s ambitions in mobile to the world at large, and to work with OEMs and platform partners to create an industry-wide roadmap for mobile that delivers the very best in media experiences for audiences.
Key Responsibilities
The post holder will be responsible for:
• Strategy and planning – partnering with product managers across the business to define vision, strategy, and roadmap for mobile platforms
• Stakeholder and partner management – engaging stakeholders throughout the BBC and its partners to create productive frameworks for efficient delivery of projects and as a source of new ideas
• Delivery – establishing the engineering process, tools, and infrastructure that enable excellence in engineering, and delivering with predictable quality against the mobile roadmap
• Leadership – building and leading an organisation of 20+ developers, testers, project/release managers, and platform managers that are a model for collaboration, terrific execution, and delivery of quality products that delight audiences
• Budget – ensuring efficient deployment and use of resource to get the very best deal for the license fee payer, and precise financial management to deliver the ambition in line with the budget
Skills
The successful candidate will be expected to demonstrate the following skills and experience:
• An in-depth understanding of specific audience needs in this area
• An understanding of BBC public purposes and how these relate to bbc.co.uk services (desirable)
• A demonstrable ability to inspire multi-disciplined product teams to deliver results
• Excellent communication skills & stakeholder management to a wide range of audiences
• A good understanding of user-centred design processes
• Experience of managing a significant budget
• Experience managing cross-functional software engineering teams
• Extensive experience of product development lifecycle and experience shipping major consumer software-as-a-service products at scale
• A strong understanding of the market and the strengths and weaknesses of competitor propositions
• Industry credibility and reputation
The closing date for applications is 21st August 11.59pm 2011. Please click on apply button to submit your application directly to the employer.
