Engineering Practice Lead

About Us

Recognised as Australia’s largest regional accommodation provider with over 80 owned and operated holiday parks (under the Discovery Parks brand), 220+ licensed independent holiday parks within our G’day Parks network, over 180,000 G’day Rewards Members, and the leading travel app in Australia, WikiCamps, the G’day Group is embarking on an exciting period of growth.

With roots firmly planted in traditional holiday parks, recent years has seen evolving investment into premium, experiential tourism, including the award-wining Discovery – Rottnest Island, a glamping resort in WA, along with buying a number of other resorts, country clubs and golf courses, and more recently El Questro and Kings Canyon Resorts.

Discovery Holiday Parks is undergoing a significant period of growth and is undertaking a historic transformation to build the Park and Digital Experience of the future. Accordingly, significant investment is being made into technology and business processes to ensure we can provide market leading experiences to our customers in both the physical and digital realm. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to design solutions for a state-of-the-art ecosystem that is transforming the regional accommodation industry.

The Role

Our software engineering teams have built some of Australia’s most popular websites and apps, with millions of unique visitors each year to our digital platforms. The G'day Group is undergoing a significant period of growth and is investing in technology and business processes to ensure we can provide market leading digital experiences for our customers.

As the Engineering Practice Lead you will be responsible for overseeing software development and testing practices. You will lead the engineering and testing functions in terms of creating and maintaining quality standards, evaluating and recommending tools to drive efficiency and innovation, working with and supporting Engineering Managers, the General Manager and CTO.

This role will require you to;

1.    Engineering Technical Leadership

• Provide technical leadership and guidance to Digital development teams throughout the project lifecycle.
• Collaborate with software engineers, test leads, architects, and other technical leads to recommend technical approaches and processes.
• Conduct cloud, code and testing reviews, providing feedback to ensure engineering best practices are being adhered to, the latest technologies are being harnessed and costs are optimised.
• Assess the software licensing requirements of the engineering team and technology stack
• Manage licenses of engineering team tools and ensuring costs stay within budget.
• Evaluate and select appropriate technologies, frameworks, and tools to support software development initiatives including emerging technologies and tools to identify opportunities for innovation and improvement
• Collaborate with product owners, project managers, scrum masters, business analysts, and subject matter experts to ensure alignment between business objectives and technical solutions.
• Liaise with and assist other departments within IT, such as Infrastructure and cyber security to ensure architecture roadmap alignment, and the engineering function needs are represented and ensuring informed decisions can be made between teams.

2.    Testing Leadership

• Create comprehensive test strategies that outline the approach, objectives, scope, and resources required for testing working with the Test leads
• Govern test-related best practices, standards, and monitor adherence to standards
• Provide guidance, support, and training to the test team to enhance their skills and productivity
• Drive automation and quality control initiatives to uplift quality standards and reliability of the tech stack
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the testing process, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes to enhance quality and efficiency
• Stay updated with the latest advancements in testing tools and methodologies to continuously improve the testing process
• Provide recommendations on suitable test tools and their maintenance to support automated and load testing needs
• Assist in the creation and maintenance of standard test documents/templates for the test team to use

3.    Solution Governance & Engineering Standards

• Define and enforce engineering best practices to ensure consistency, scalability and maintainability across solutions
• Drive and participate in governance processes to review and approve solution designs, change processes (e.g. Digital CAB), architecture decisions, and technical artifacts.
• Monitor adherence to engineering best practice guidelines, and address deviations as necessary
• Establish and enforce coding standards, best practices, and architectural guidelines across development teams
• Implement Cloud and DevOps practices to streamline development processes and improve efficiency in collaboration with the DevOps team
• Implement or contribute to governance frameworks to manage vendor executed projects or software development to ensure vendors adhere to approved engineering and architecture standards

4.    Process Improvement

• Continuously improve engineering and testing workflows and processes to optimize productivity and efficiency.
• Implement feedback loops with the engineering, testing and product teams to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
• Ensure consistent documentation and adherence to process, enabling more efficient onboarding and team scaling.

5.    Quality Assurance

• Establish a culture of high-quality software delivery with strong testing practices, code reviews, and performance monitoring.
• Ensure the engineering team is proactively identifying and addressing technical debt.
• Encourage the use of metrics and data to measure and improve engineering performance.

6.    Innovation, Research & Continuous Improvement

• Encourage a culture of innovation and experimentation to drive continuous improvement and differentiation in software products.
• Identify and conduct research and feasibility studies on AI and emerging technologies, and industry trends to identify opportunities for innovation to enhance the digital team’s capabilities.
• Foster partnerships with academic institutions, research organisations, and technology vendors to stay abreast of cutting-edge developments.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of engineering processes, tools, methodologies and the solution architecture practice along with Solution Architects.
• Solicit feedback from project stakeholders and incorporate lessons learned into future solution designs and engineering processes

Your Experience

Tertiary qualifications in Computer Science, Software Engineering or related field combined with professional certifications in relevant technologies and methodologies. You will have proven hands-on experience in software engineering with a track record of leading successful software development initiatives. You will have a strong understanding of software development lifecycles, Agile methodologies and DevOps practices. You will have technical expertise in software design, development and deployment across a variety of platforms and technologies.

To be successful in this role you will have exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal. You will be flexible and adaptable, able to work in a rapidly changing environment. Your stakeholder management skills are critical to your success. Your collaborative style is a natural strength, as is your business acumen and understanding of organizational issues and challenges.

You will possess a high level of energy, self-motivation, autonomy, initiative, and attention to detail to be successful in meeting the business demands at G’day Group. Your naturally upbeat and open style will fit our cultural values. You will have a highly organised mindset with the ability to assess the urgency of work allocated to you by various stakeholders.

G’day Group is a dynamic company with an energetic ‘market disrupter’ reputation. If you are passionate, adventurous, and ready to hit the ground running, we want to hear from you.

Discover more to life - APPLY NOW!

Benefits

·      Health and Wellbeing – Flexible and hybrid working arrangements / Employee Assistance Program / Discounted private health cover / BeWell Training Program / Weekly yoga and walking group / Free annual flu vaccinations

·      Leave Policies – Parental leave / Volunteer leave / Study leave 

·      Professional Development – Leadership programs / Support of external training courses / Reimbursement of professional memberships

·      Employee Savings – Discounted accommodation and experience rates / Salary packaging / Discovery partner discounts/ Free G’day Rewards membership / Loyalty recognition benefits

Our ESG statement

The G’day Group acknowledges the increasing global expectation to demonstrate our approach to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risk factors and sustainability in our daily operations and ongoing decision making. Our five-year ESG strategy is evolving to ensure we are committed to growing with care through supporting our people, giving back to the communities we operate in, and protecting our environment.

Prior to an offer of employment being made, candidates must provide authority for a Federal Police Clearance to disclose any criminal offences or charges. Drivers Licence essential.