Reference: BH-342p
Job Type: Permanent
Working Hours: 5 days per week
Salary: Up to £95,000 per annum
On-Site: Hybrid - 2-3 days per month on-site
Role overview:
We are looking for a visionary Head of Engineering to lead our client’s engineering team, ensuring high-quality development processes, scalable platform architecture, and effective leadership.
Reporting directly to the CTO, you will drive technical strategy, refine development workflows, and mentor engineering leaders. You’ll play a key role in optimising SDLC processes, quality assurance, and engineering performance metrics to keep technology robust and scalable.
You’ll work closely with Solution Architects, Engineering Leads, and Product Teams to make critical technical decisions, balancing innovation with business goals. This role requires a hands-on leader who fosters a culture of continuous improvement and can navigate the challenges of high-growth SaaS businesses.
Responsibilities:
- Provide strategic direction to the engineering team, ensuring alignment with business and product goals.
- Implement Shift Left principles, peer-reviewed code practices, and quality-driven SDLC processes.
- Create solutions that support high-traffic environments, leveraging serverless systems, caching strategies, and efficient API calls.
- Oversee code quality, security best practices, and vulnerability management.
- Refine Git flow, release strategies, and tech debt reduction initiatives.
- Define and track SLAs, KPIs, and OKRs to measure engineering efficiency, release effectiveness, and incident resolution.
- Oversee the development of native mobile apps (iOS & Android) and guide teams in building proprietary SaaS solutions.
- Mentor Lead Developers, foster a strong engineering culture, and cultivate leadership skills within the teams.
- Work with the CTO, Solution Architects technology with business strategy.
- Address challenges in high-traffic systems, database optimizations, scalable infrastructure
- Manage differing technical opinions, encourage learning from mistakes, and support team members’ professional growth.
Essential Experience:
- Proven experience in a Head of Engineering, VP Engineering, or similar leadership role.
- Strong background in software architecture, SDLC processes, and quality-driven development.
- Experience in SaaS businesses building proprietary products rather than integrating third-party tools.
- Hands-on expertise in mobile app development (iOS & Android) and backend architecture.
- Deep understanding of scaling high-traffic applications, serverless computing, and database performance optimization.
- Strong Cloud background (AWS or Azure preferred).
- Strong infrastructure experience (understanding or hands-on experience).
- Track record of mentoring engineers and developing leadership skills within teams.
- Ability to navigate technical debt reduction strategies and software development best practices.
- Experience implementing monitoring tools to assess team and release performance.
- Familiarity with SFIA framework and skills matrices (desirable).
Why join?
- Strategic Leadership: Work directly with the CTO and influence the company’s technical roadmap.
- High Impact Role: Lead engineering teams at a pivotal stage of global scaling and product innovation.
- Fast-Paced Growth: Join a dynamic SaaS business expanding into new markets and high-traffic environments.
- Autonomy & Ownership: Shape the engineering culture, processes, and long-term technology vision.
- Personal Development: Opportunity to mentor and build high-performing engineering teams while advancing your leadership skills.