We’re a multi-channel, multi-brand business serving millions of customers a day, with the UK’s largest loyalty scheme and an ever-evolving set of digital platforms. All of this equals over 1.2 billion transactions each year, presenting a volume, depth and complexity of data that few can match.

We don’t think we’re exaggerating when we say we have the most exciting data set in the country.  And from the insights gained, we build scalable, high-performance products using cutting-edge technology that give our customers an amazing shopping experience â€“ like our award-winning Smartshop app. In an inclusive, agile environment, you’ll have the space to be curious, to experiment, and to solve real-world challenges. And you’ll get to see your creations in the hands of millions of people across the UK.

As an Agile Coach you’ll play a key role, coaching 2 – 4 of our Sainsbury’s Tech teams in their understanding and application of Agile, Lean and DevOps principles, in order to facilitate delivery across specific customer, colleague and business outcomes.

You’ll be great at building stakeholder relationships and influencing mindsets, and you’ll need to master several new and emerging techniques and models for coaching, conversation and facilitation to enable our colleagues and teams to discover what works best for them.

More about the role

• You’ll help to nurture and coach the organisation on its transformation journey. To do this you will utilise your knowledge and practical experience with Agile frameworks, principles and techniques, so experience of Lean, Kanban, Systems Thinking and DevOps will be required
• You’ll work closely with leaders to focus on understanding the needs of your colleagues and stakeholders and will help them to deliver value by assessing the impact of work and measuring its outcomes
• Work with teams, including where team members are new to Agile and DevOps concepts, enabling the benefits and new ways of working / thinking to become the norm.
• Show the role of technical / engineering practices in driving agility, such as continuous integration, automated testing
• Encourage teams to mitigate risks and achieve better outcomes through experimentation, fast feedback and iterative delivery. You will remove impediments and steer team performance by measuring and tracking metrics such as lead time and waste
• Help create a culture of timely feedback and retrospectives to bring about measurable improvements in team behaviour and maturity, identifying useful metrics to support continuous improvement
• Understand the Sainsbury’s Tech vision and strategy, thereby ensuring coaching activities in their specific teams fit into wider priorities – actively contributing to and helping to drive forward the Sainsbury’s Tech coaching practice
• You may be asked to Line Manage up to 4 Team Coaches depending on the needs of the organisation

More about you

• You’ll have knowledge and significant experience of applying a range of Agile / Lean / DevOps Principles and practices
• Experience of transformation change and knowledgeable in organisation design and change management approaches
• Exceptionally developed coaching skills with teams and individuals up to senior level
• Strong people skills including stakeholder engagement, high emotional intelligence, along with strong judgement and decision-making capability
• Highly numeric, able to identify and track against key metrics
• Highly commercial with strong business acumen, able to identify and deploy the levers to business success
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and experience of working in matrix structures
• Innovative and focused on continuous improvement, comfortable challenging the status quo and enabling change
• Tenacious in seeing things through and making vision a reality
• Be able to motivate and lead others both as a Line Manager and/or Coach

As well as lots of on-the-job training and endless opportunities, you’ll get:

• Colleague discount across our multi-brands – Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat
• Holiday allowance
• Bonus scheme
• Pension plan
• Special offers on gym memberships, restaurants, holidays, retail vouchers and more

Work-life balance is important to us, so we offer our colleagues as much flexibility as possible in line with the needs of their role. We trust them to decide how, where and when they work, combining remote and collaborative working with a flexible approach to hours, giving them plenty of time and space for life outside of work whilst delivering against our business goals.