M & M&S is looking for people to fill software engineering roles to help the retailer with its ongoing technology adoption and digital transformation plans. mThe M&OS initiative aims to find skilled workers to fill 70 software engineering and digital positions across the business over the next year.
Mike Yorwerth, CTO at M&S, said: “At M&S Tech, we’re working to establish ourselves as a destination for the best tech practitioners around. Our team is based on the principles of creative thinking, innovation, and, above all, trying something different – and that’s what our bespoke M&OS site is all about.
“With the recruitment of these 70 new roles, combined with our existing pool of tech talent, we’re putting responsibility for our digital transformation in the hands of some seriously inspiring software engineers – which excites me for the future of M&S Tech.”
The pandemic put pressure on retailers as online ordering surged. At the same time, consumers were forced to stay home, making retailers choose to hire more technology workers and delivery drivers to cope with increased demand. For example, Ocado – which M&S launched an online grocery delivery deal with in 2019 to the tune of £750m – hired 300 additional tech employees during the pandemic to ensure the firm and its partners could meet increased demand while growing its platform.
In the tech sector, thousands of roles were made across the UK’s technology industry in 2020. Amazon also recently announced plans to create 10,000 jobs across its online retail and cloud divisions in the UK. As part of its push to find new tech workers, M&S has launched a dedicated page encouraging people to look into technology at the retailer.
The site gives people an easy redirect to the M&S jobs site and showcases some of the technology innovations the firm has worked on over the past few years.
M&S hopes the new microsite and its features will appeal to the type of people it wants to apply for the roles it has available, allowing possible candidates to find out more about the retailer through coding tasks – as an example, users can view a video of M&S CTO Mike Yorwerth by following specific instructions on a particular page on the website.
The retailer looks to fill various roles at various levels, including iOS developer, technology solutions lead in multiple disciplines, infosec operations center manager, and retail implementation project manager.
After admitting in 2018 that its online remit was “well behind” its competitors, M&S has since made huge strides in technology adoption and digital transformation.
As well as it’s deal with Ocado, which saw M&S take ownership of half of Ocado’s UK retail business as well as the ability to sell groceries online through Ocado’s platform, M&S added battery charging banks to its stores as part of a startup partnership and introduced a photo searching capability to its mobile site to help people find products they like by using other images.
It also partnered with Decoded to work on its data science remit by teaching its employees data science skills. The retailer announced part of its ongoing digital transformation would see a reduction in some roles, announcing plans to cut 7,000 jobs days before the launch of its joint online shopping venture with Ocado as part of a “streamlining program”. However, it also said it has plans to create jobs later on as it continues to invest in online fulfillment.
