Smith+Nephew on cord

Smith+Nephew

Global Category Leader, IT Software

External position
Watford, UK
Hiring internally for Smith+Nephew?
MedTech · Manufacturing
We design and manufacture technology that takes the limits off living.
Posted
a week ago
Checked
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5 hours ago

Skills & Experience

Job roles: Business Operations
Experience level: Lead
Core skills considered: Building Teams, Business Analysis, Business development, Business Development Strategy
Other skills considered: Commercial recruiting, Stakeholder Management, Risk mitigation, Data Protection

Logistics

Base salary: Undisclosed
Some companies on cord are unable to disclose salaries publicly due to internal company policies. Message the company for salary information.
Employment type: Permanent
Remote working: Hybrid
Visa sponsorship: Not available

Job Description

This role is responsible for defining and executing Smith+Nephew's global software procurement strategy across enterprise applications, SaaS, digital platforms and emerging AI-enabled technologies. You will act as a trusted commercial partner to IT, Digital and business leaders, helping the organisation maximise value from software investments while balancing innovation, risk, governance and speed.

This is not a traditional sourcing role. We are looking for a strategic category leader who can shape supplier strategy, influence technology investment decisions, drive commercial value, build organisational capability and position Procurement as a strategic enabler of Smith+Nephew's RISE ambition. In addition to leading the Software category, the role will act as Procurement's AI Champion, helping category teams navigate the commercial, contractual, governance and risk implications of AI as it becomes increasingly embedded within products, services and supplier solutions across the enterprise.

As an M2 leader, you will lead through others-coaching and developing category managers, setting high standards for execution, and creating the conditions for sustained performance, innovation and continuous improvement.


What you will be doing?

Category Strategy & Value Creation

  • Define and execute the global software category strategy, aligned to business priorities, digital transformation objectives and the RISE strategy.
  • Build and manage a multi-year value pipeline across cost optimisation, software rationalisation, demand management, risk reduction and innovation.
  • Use market intelligence, supplier insights and benchmarking to shape strategic decisions and identify new opportunities.
  • Act as Procurement's AI Champion for AI-enabled software and emerging technologies, providing leadership, guidance and governance support to category teams as AI becomes increasingly embedded within supplier solutions, products and services across the enterprise.

Strategic Business Partnering

  • Serve as a trusted commercial advisor to IT, Digital, Data & Analytics, Cybersecurity, Finance, Legal and business stakeholders.
  • Influence software investment decisions through insight, structured challenge and commercial expertise.
  • Ensure Procurement is engaged early in planning and technology decision-making processes.
  • Identify and execute initiatives for cross-category IT-related optimisation and consolidation.

Commercial Excellence & Supplier Leadership

  • Lead complex negotiations with strategic software suppliers and oversee major commercial agreements.
  • Drive effective supplier relationship management to improve performance, innovation, risk management and business outcomes.
  • Establish commercial approaches that balance flexibility, scalability, value delivery and enterprise risk.

AI, Digital & Software Governance

  • Help shape Smith+Nephew's approach to procuring and managing AI-enabled software and emerging technologies.
  • Ensure appropriate governance around software licensing, data rights, AI-related contractual considerations, cybersecurity and compliance requirements.
  • Promote data-driven decision-making and adoption of AI-enabled procurement tools and ways of working.

People Leadership & Capability Building

  • Lead, coach and develop a high-performing software procurement team.
  • Build capability in category management, stakeholder engagement, negotiation, commercial strategy and AI-enabled procurement.
  • Foster a culture of accountability, curiosity, continuous improvement and collaboration.
  • Drive AI capability development across the wider procurement organisation through coaching, training, knowledge sharing and practical application of AI-enabled procurement techniques.
  • Support category teams in assessing the impact of AI on supplier markets, commercial models, contracting approaches, governance requirements, and risk considerations within their respective categories.
  • Champion digital, data and AI fluency across the procurement organisation, fostering communities of practice and promoting the sharing emerging market insights, lessons learned and best practices.

What will you need to be succesful?

  • Significant experience in software procurement, technology sourcing, commercial management or related leadership roles.
  • Demonstrated success developing and executing category strategies that deliver measurable business value.
  • Experience leading complex software negotiations and supplier relationships at a regional or global level.
  • Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and operate effectively in matrix environments.
  • Experience leading and developing teams, with a track record of building capability and improving performance.
  • Knowledge of AI-enabled software, data governance, responsible AI principles, and evolving software commercial models.
  • An understanding of AI, emerging digital technologies and their impact on procurement, sourcing, and supplier management.
  • Experience developing governance, risk management or compliance approaches for technology-enabled suppliers and third-party services.
  • Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders on digital transformation, AI adoption, and responsible AI practices.
  • Experience working collaboratively with IT, Legal, Cyber Security, Privacy and Compliance functions.

Preferred Experience

  • Deep understanding of enterprise software, SaaS, licensing models, software asset optimisation and supplier ecosystems.
  • Experience supporting digital transformation, technology modernisation or AI-related initiatives.
  • Experience within a complex, global and highly regulated environment.
  • People leadership and development experience.

Company Benefits

  • Inclusion, Diversity and Equity: Committed to Welcoming, Celebrating and Thriving on Diversity
  • Your Future: Generous annual bonus and pension Schemes, Save As You Earn share options.
  • Work/Life Balance: Flexible Vacation and Time Off, Paid Holidays and Paid Volunteering Hours, so we can give back to our communities!
  • Your Wellbeing: Private Health and Dental plans, Healthcare Cash Plans, Income Protection, Life Assurance and much more.
  • Flexibility: Hybrid Working Model (For most professional roles).
  • Training: Hands-On, Team-Customised, Mentorship.
  • Extra Perks: Discounts on Gyms and fitness clubs, Salary Sacrifice Bicycle and Car Schemes and many other Employee discounts.

Global Category Leader, IT Software at Smith+Nephew
Position posted a week ago

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Starling Bank on cord

Starling Bank

Full Stack Engineer (ML Ops)

London, UK
FinTech · Banking · Finance
A better bank for everyone
Active
over 6 months ago
Responds to
0% of requests
Responds in
1h 55m
Requests
7 pending

Skills & Experience

Job roles: Full Stack
Experience level: Mid, Senior
Core skills considered: Java, React, Redux, AWS, JavaScript

Logistics

Base salary: £70K - £110K
Employment type: Permanent
Remote working: Hybrid (up to 2 remote days p/w)
Visa sponsorship: Not available

Job Description

Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! Our vision is fast technology, fair service, and honest values. All at the tap of a phone, all the time.

Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way.

We’re a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We’re a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,000 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

Our technologists are at the very heart of Starling and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment that is all about building things, creating new stuff, and disruptive technology that keeps us on the cutting edge of fintech. We operate a flat structure to empower you to make decisions regardless of what your primary responsibilities may be, innovation and collaboration will be at the core of everything you do. Help is never far away in our open culture, you will find support in your team and from across the business, we are in this together!

The way to thrive and shine within Starling is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, discovering, to sharing knowledge with your colleagues and making sure all processes are efficient and productive to deliver the best possible results for our customers. Our purpose is underpinned by five Starling values: Listen, Keep It Simple, Do The Right Thing, Own It, and Aim For Greatness.

Hybrid Working

We have a Hybrid approach to working here at Starling - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person. We don't like to mandate how much you visit the office and work from home, that's to be agreed upon between you and your manager.

Our Data Environment

Our Data teams are excited about the value of data within the business, powers our product decisions to improve things for our customers and enhance effective and agile decision making, regardless of what their primary tech stack may be. Hear from the team in our latest blogs or our case studies with Women in Tech.

We are looking for talented data professionals at all levels to join the team. We value people being engaged and caring about customers, caring about the code they write and the contribution they make to Starling. People with a broad ability to apply themselves to a multitude of problems and challenges, who can work across teams do great things here at Starling, to continue changing banking for good.

Requirements

We have built our entire banking platform in house and mostly in Java. We are looking for people who want to work on building the tooling that is used by our engineers on a daily basis.

We are looking for people who are truly full stack, and are as comfortable polishing their javascript front end as they are debugging the innards of their java applications database interactions, or standing up infrastructure with terraform. We are looking for people who can:

  • Design REST apis.
  • Code backend services, ideally using Java, or another other server side compiled language.
  • Develop modern front ends, ideally using React and Redux.
  • Get their code into the cloud and support it there, ideally on AWS.
  • Believe in clean coding, simple solutions, automated testing and continuous deployment.
  • Like to take ownership of a feature from the original idea through to live.
  • Think (like us) that a small number of empowered developers is the right way to deliver software.

Company Benefits

  • 33 days holiday (including flexible bank holidays)
  • An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
  • 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
  • Part-time and/or flexible hours available for most roles
  • Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
  • Life insurance at 4x your salary
  • Hybrid/remote working
  • Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
  • Generous family-friendly policies
  • Varied social groups set up and run by our employees
  • Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
  • Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing

Full details are available on our careers site

Interview Process

Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:

  • Stage 1 - 30 mins with one of the team
  • Stage 2 - Take home challenge
  • Stage 3 - 90 mins technical interview with two team members
  • Stage 3 - 45 min final with an executive and a member of the people team
Alex Yeates on cord
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