Job Titles

Job Titles in the IT department generally fall within the structure shown below.

As you might expect, the general principle within any of the title streams is that increasing competency, skill and experience leads to promotion towards the senior roles shown. Generally the streams run from more technical (on the left) towards less technical and management (on the right). The nature of our business and our flexible career development options allow our Partners to move between the streams fairly easily although, as time progresses it is most likely that individuals will tend to move upwards and towards the right-hand side of the structure. To give a little more background, the following sections outline the sorts of roles & responsibilities we expect from each of our senior levels.

Principal Programmer - Has considerable technical understanding of a specific technology area and has a general understanding of the technical environment used within our business. This knowledge and experience is likely to have been built up over eight or more years and enables our Principal Programmers to contribute to specific systems developments or to be part of the IT strategy setting groups.

Senior Analyst - In the same way that a Principal Programmer has high levels of technology related experience, our Senior Analysts are expected to have developed their business analysis and business user relationships over a number of years. This gives them the competence and authority to discuss and agree requirements with our most senior business users before designing and integrating the new and enhanced computer applications which help move our multi-billion pound business forward.

Project Manager - Project Managers define, plan and deliver development projects of all types. Some of these may be purely systems related whilst others are involved in building related developments (somebody has to make sure we successfully implement our systems in new food stores and department stores!). Project managers don’t do the work themselves, but are responsible for resolving problems and issues that arise as their project moves forward. Project Managers will also normally have some eight or more years experience and will be expected to maintain a task-orientated view of life in order to make sure their projects are brought in on time and to budget.

Systems Manager - Our Systems Managers provide the main line-management layer in the IT department. They act as the primary “account manager” between the IT department and the retail business managers. Systems Managers will normally be responsible for the management of between five and twenty-five Partners. Their team may well consist of a mixture of job titles and levels. As with the other senior levels, Systems Managers are expected to be highly experienced and competent and to be able to build strong relationships with their counterparts in the business.