Development Team Lead

Founded in 1995, The Cobalt Group is North America’s leading provider of automotive marketing services, offering automotive dealers and manufactures the industry’s best online retailing, CRM, fixed operations and search engine marketing solutions. For more than a decade, Cobalt’s exclusive mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers increase their retailing effectiveness and profits. Cobalt provides marketing services to more than half the automotive dealerships in the United States, Canada and Mexico and is endorsed by more than two-thirds of the world’s major automotive manufacturers. Cobalt is endorsed by the American International Automobile Dealers Association.Provides technical leadership, direction, and project management to assigned development team, and is accountable for their performance and productivity. Manage day to day activities of the team. Act as a liaison to other departments such as marketing, technical support, production and creative services. Works closely with team members on technical issues and complex problems. Plays a leadership role in the initial discovery process and application development meetings. Participates in analysis of client needs. Ensures accuracy of estimates for technical deliverables. Works with QA and Leadership to enforce development standards and processes. Organizes and conduct design and code walk-through. Contributes to employee assessments.The person in this position frequently develops new applications and concepts, and is responsible for developing and implementing the supporting processes and procedures. This position operates with minimal supervision, and comes with the expectation that the development lead will seek upper management assistance as necessary. By it’s nature, the work involves priority changes and interruptions, and thus requires maximum flexibility.Work with representatives from a variety of Cobalt departments, clients, and third party vendors to define/refine project requirements.
Scope development effort, and provide reliable resource and timeline estimates.
Manage the development and review of technical documents (Software Architecture and Design documents).
Create detailed software development plans, and assign tasks to team members.Act as a primary liaison to other departments, clients, and third party organizations. Facilitate the interaction between team members and representatives of these other groups as required.
Periodically evaluate progress of team members and provide feedback - verbal and written.
Actively work to improve quality and efficiency by evaluating policies/procedures and suggesting improvements.
Coach and mentor development staff.
Identify team training and resource needs - technology, tools, etc. - and implement plan to meet those needs.
Write programs/code as required.
Interview and evaluate job candidates.
General system support and training.Required SkillsBachelor of Science degree required (CS or MIS pref.).
2+ years experience in a technical leadership role.
6+ years experience in software development, specifically web application development. (Perl, Java, J2EE, XML, and related technologies).
3+ years experience with relational database technologies, including SQL.
Demonstrated planning, analysis, and estimation skills.
Demonstrated communication and collaboration skills.
Demonstrated ability to work independently and multi-task.
Experience interacting with both technical and non-technical personnel is required.
Experience working with offshore teams a plus.
Solid in Web technologies (UNIX, JSP, HTML, JavaScript, XML)
Demonstrated proficiency with EJB, Servlets, Swing, JSP, JDBC, SQL, Web Services.
Direct experience with BEA Weblogic, Oracle.
Architecture: 3 tier architectures, J2EE, Client/Server.
Strong overview knowledge of software development cycles, web and network technologies.
Demonstrated ability in effective database optimization in concert with DB Architecture teams.
Demonstrated ability in performance analysis and design for scalability.
Demonstrated success in overseeing the development phase of multiple projects.
Familiar with major OS and hosting center environments.
Experience hosting web applications on major web servers and operating systems.
Ability to organize development strategy and conceptualize.
Based in Seattle, Cobalt has offices in Detroit; Columbus, Ohio; Redwood City, California; and Bangalore, India. In addition, Cobalt hires all over the US for positions in the field. Automotive retailing solutions continue to be a growth industry as more and more dealerships and manufacturers recognize the operational efficiencies and the extraordinary marketing potential of Cobalt’s technology. Accordingly, Cobalt’s customer base and its need for talented, creative and hardworking individuals continue to grow. The Cobalt work environment is fast-paced, energized, informal and fun, but with a serious focus on quality, customer service, innovation, and an ongoing commitment to excellence. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision for employee and dependents (including domestic partners), life insurance, paid vacation time, personal days, sick leave and paid holidays, 401K with match, employee referral bonuses, stock option plan, subsidized parking and free bus pass, onsite gym, and more. For more information, go to www.cobaltgroup.com.
REQUIREMENTS
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