Hi - I’m Ben Conrad, a technical delivery manager (TDM) with the Multi-channel Digital Tax Platform (MDTP) and currently also interim digital tax platform product owner. As well as giving me an unwieldy email signature, another effect of these roles is that I am leading the migration of MDTP from London to Bristol.
Where be that to?*
The history of MDTP has been outlined previously, so I won’t expand on that (except to say that last year we moved from an office on the South Bank to a transitional site in Canary Wharf). It was always understood that Canary Wharf was a temporary base, and we have been clear for a while that our long-term home will be a new regional hub in Bristol. The (symbolic) keys were handed over in March and as I type this, I am now sat in our shiny new office, having moved in September 2019.
MDTP have been building up a presence in Bristol since last year, in anticipation of our move from Canary Wharf to Glass Wharf (we just really like wharves). Working with teams split across two locations presents a number of challenges, but our use of digital tools to enable video calls, collaborate on documents and code, as well as virtual whiteboards, helps enormously.
Gert lush*
The new regional centre is a brand new building, set up to support new ‘ways of working’ for all HMRC staff. Hot-desking, video conferencing equipment and a wide range of different zones and rooms enables greater flexibility for all staff.
The building is not only a gleaming example of concrete and glass, but, perhaps more importantly, is about as close as you can get to Temple Meads railway station without actually being on a platform. For those who get the train to work, or regularly need to travel to the other digital delivery centres, this offers significant advantages.
Alright me babber?*
I wanted to write this blog, not just to revel in the fact that we’re in a brand new building, but also because we are hiring! Most of the individuals who currently work on MDTP will be moving on to other projects, and not making the move to Bristol.
Ultimately this means that we need to recruit new employees, and have enough time to allow really important knowledge transfer to happen. We are advertising for people to fill a range of positions, including technical roles such as devops engineers, as well as delivery leads and product owners.
As a product owner, you will need a wide set of skills. These include an ability to understand the technology stacks used by the devops practitioners and to deliver the service and tools required by the teams building on MDTP; to be able to prioritise the work that you would like to get done and fantastic communication skills, so you can explain the business benefits of this work.
The delivery leads work as part of one of the different platform teams and have to do everything they can to facilitate delivery. This will include running the whole gamut of agile ceremonies from daily standups, retrospectives and post mortems which we hold when (as will inevitably happen) things go wrong to see what we can learn to operate better in the future. The delivery lead will also be working to remove blockers and ensure the smooth running of the teams.
On MDTP, devops engineers are building the infrastructure and functionality in the public cloud, that we can then provide to tenant services. We follow the view that the teams that build it are best placed to operate and support it as we believe it helps to ensure high quality code.
If you have the experience and would like to be a part of this growing team as we build on the success that we’ve already achieved, please do apply! Bristol is our new home, and we’re really looking forward to bringing with us the collaborative ethos and culture that have been so important in everything we’ve built so far.
*Bristolian translations
Where be that to? – where is it?
Gert lush – really good
Alright me babber? – hi, how are you?
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Check out all our current vacancies including those in Bristol. They're updated regularly so worth keeping an eye on.
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