M&S launches initiative to hire software engineers

M&S is on the lookout for people to fill software engineering roles to help the retailer with its ongoing plans for technology adoption and digital transformation.

The initiative, called M&OS, is aimed at finding 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 very 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 makes me really excited for the future of M&S Tech.” 

The pandemic put pressure on retailers as online ordering surged while consumers were forced to stay home, leading to make retailers choosing 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 also growing its platform.

Amazon also recently announced plans to create 10,000 jobs in the UK across its online retail and cloud divisions. In the tech sector as a whole, thousands of roles were created across the UK’s technology industry in 2020.

As part of its push to find new tech workers, M&S has launched a dedicated page to encourage people to look into the use of technology at the retailer.

The site not only gives people an easy redirect to the M&S jobs site, but also showcases some of the technology innovations the firm has been working 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, giving possible candidates the opportunity 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 certain instructions on a particular page on the website.

The retailer looks to fill a number of different types of roles at various levels, including iOS developer, technology solutions leads in various disciplines, infosec operations centre manager, and retail implementation project manager.

After admitting in 2018 its online remit was “well behind” that of its competitors, M&S has since made huge strides in technology adoption and digital transformation.

As well as its 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 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 programme”, though it also said it has plans to create jobs later on as it continues to invest in online fulfilment.