{"id":1137268,"url":"https://alion.io/job/financial-times-engineering-lead-erp-services","title":"Engineering Lead – ERP Services","company":{"id":11348,"name":"Financial Times","domain":"ft.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/financial-times","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"is_intermediary":false,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":94,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.25,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":52,"computed_at":"2026-09-23T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Enterprise Apps","role_family":"Enterprise Apps","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Incident Management","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-23T07:36:45Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-23","last_verified_at":"2026-09-23T17:42:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About Us\nThe Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, globally recognised for its authority, integrity and accuracy, with a mission to deliver quality information and services worldwide.\nAt the FT, curiosity thrives and ambitious thinking is rewarded. Together, we help audiences stay better informed and deepen their understanding of the world around them.\nOur Product & Tech teams drive us forward in an ever-evolving digital landscape, delivering cutting-edge products to over one million digital subscribers daily. Our growth relies on a diverse, dedicated and dynamic group of product, tech, delivery and data specialists.\nWith a supportive culture, entrepreneurial spirit and opportunities at every turn, there are no limits to where your FT career can take you.\nBuild a newsworthy career at the FT.\nOur commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion\nWe believe in the power of unique perspectives and want all voices in our organisation to be heard, respected and valued. A supportive workplace is one where employees feel they can be themselves and operate to their full potential. We are committed to removing barriers for everyone, with a focus on addressing those faced by underrepresented groups.\nAbout you\nYou are an experienced engineering leader with strong knowledge of ERP or similarly complex enterprise platforms and a track record of leading teams responsible for business-critical technology.\nYou combine people leadership with credible technical judgement. You are comfortable setting direction, making engineering decisions and working with your team on complex technical problems, while creating the ownership and autonomy for engineers to succeed.\nYou understand that enterprise platform engineering goes beyond implementing configuration or coordinating vendors. You think about the entire technology capability: the core platform, integrations, data flows, extensions, operational processes, security, resilience and how the platform evolves over time.\nYou are comfortable working closely with Finance and other business stakeholders, translating priorities and requirements into sustainable technology solutions and constructively challenging approaches that create unnecessary complexity or risk.\nYou are also interested in building capability. You can identify gaps in skills and knowledge, develop engineers and create a team that understands and genuinely owns its technology rather than relying disproportionately on individual specialists or external partners.\nAbout the team\nERP Services sits within Corporate Technology, part of Internal Products, and owns the engineering capabilities supporting critical Finance and enterprise business processes across the FT.\nThe team is responsible for the engineering, operation and continuous evolution of our ERP technology estate, including Oracle Fusion and the integrations, data flows and supporting capabilities that connect it to the wider FT technology landscape.\nERP Services works closely with Finance, Product, Architecture, Integration & Engineering Services, Security and other Corporate Technology teams to ensure these critical enterprise capabilities remain reliable and can evolve as the needs of the organisation change.\nWe are strengthening the engineering leadership and platform expertise within ERP Services as part of a wider evolution of the Corporate Technology operating model. The Engineering Lead will establish clear platform and team ownership, reporting to the Principal Engineer - Corporate Technology.\nWhat you’ll work on\nAs Engineering Lead - ERP Services, you will own the engineering, operation and continuous evolution of the FT’s ERP technology capability.\nYou will lead the ERP engineering team, providing people leadership, technical direction and clear accountability for the health and performance of the platforms and services the team owns.\nA key part of the role will be strengthening our internal ERP engineering capability. You will develop the technical knowledge of the team, establish clear ownership of platforms and services and ensure we have the skills and understanding required to operate and evolve our ERP estate effectively.\nYou will work closely with Product and Finance stakeholders to understand business priorities and translate them into engineering plans, balancing new capabilities and business change with platform health, technical debt and operational investment.\nYou will also work with the Principal Engineer and Architecture to ensure decisions within ERP Services support the longer-term direction of Corporate Technology and the wider FT technology estate.\nYour responsibilities will include\nEngineering & Platform Ownership\nOwning the engineering, operation and continuous evolution of the ERP technology capability.\nProviding clear technical direction for the platforms, integrations and supporting services owned by ERP Services.\nEnsuring ERP platforms remain secure, resilient, scalable, maintainable and appropriately supported.\nEstablishing clear ownership across the team for systems, integrations and technical capabilities.\nEnsuring engineering decisions consider reliability, security, operability, maintainability, cost and long-term sustainability.\nMaintaining visibility of platform health, technical debt, lifecycle risks and significant dependencies.\nWorking with the Principal Engineer and Architecture on material technical decisions and longer-term platform direction.\nEnsuring the team maintains sufficient technical understanding of its platforms to make informed decisions and challenge external recommendations.\nPeople & Engineering Leadership\nLeading, supporting and developing the engineers within ERP Services.\nSetting clear expectations and providing regular coaching, feedback and career development.\nBuilding a team culture based on ownership, accountability, collaboration and constructive technical challenge.\nDeveloping ERP and enterprise platform expertise across the team rather than allowing critical knowledge to remain concentrated in individuals.\nIdentifying capability and skills gaps and developing plans to address them through development, recruitment or appropriate external expertise.\nCreating opportunities for engineers to take greater technical ownership and develop their leadership capability.\nSupporting recruitment and building a resilient team with the skills required for the future ERP technology landscape.\nEnsuring appropriate succession and knowledge sharing across critical areas.\nDelivery & Planning\nWorking with Product to translate business priorities and technology strategy into clear engineering plans and deliverable outcomes.\nOwning engineering planning and resource allocation within ERP Services.\nEnsuring engineering capacity appropriately balances business change, platform improvement, operational work and technical debt.\nIdentifying technical dependencies, risks and constraints early and ensuring these are visible in planning and prioritisation.\nEnsuring delivery commitments are realistic and supported by appropriate technical understanding.\nWorking across teams where initiatives involve multiple platforms, integrations or engineering capabilities.\nProviding clear visibility of engineering progress, risks and trade-offs to Product, technology leadership and relevant stakeholders.\nERP Platform Evolution\nDeveloping a clear understanding of the current ERP estate and identifying opportunities to simplify, modernise and improve it.\nWorking with Product, Architecture and the Principal Engineer to shape the longer-term evolution of ERP technology.\nEvaluating platform capabilities and determining when requirements should be addressed through standard functionality, configuration, integration or other engineering approaches.\nChallenging unnecessary customisation and complexity where more sustainable solutions are available.\nEnsuring platform upgrades, new capabilities and significant changes are introduced safely and sustainably.\nUnderstanding vendor roadmaps and assessing their implications for the FT's technology direction and investment decisions.\nEnsuring technical debt and lifecycle concerns are actively managed rather than accumulating through incremental business change.\nIntegration & Enterprise Technology\nEnsuring the team understands and owns the integrations and data flows connecting ERP with the wider FT technology estate.\nWorking closely with Integration & Engineering Services and other platform teams to establish clear ownership of cross-system capabilities.\nEnsuring integrations follow appropriate FT engineering and architectural standards.\nIdentifying opportunities to simplify interfaces, reduce duplication and improve reliability.\nSupporting technical decisions that span ERP, Tax, People and other Corporate Technology capabilities.\nEnsuring changes within ERP appropriately consider downstream and upstream impacts.\nOperational Excellence & Risk\nOwning the operational performance of ERP Services and ensuring critical services are appropriately monitored and supported.\nEstablishing effective approaches to observability, incident management, problem management, change management and operational readiness.\nEnsuring recurring incidents and operational problems are investigated to their underlying causes and addressed sustainably.\nMaintaining appropriate approaches to resilience, disaster recovery and business continuity.\nEnsuring relevant security, data governance, compliance and technology standards are met.\nMaintaining visibility of material operational and technical risks and ensuring appropriate mitigation plans are in place.\nUsing operational insight to inform engineering priorities and platform investment.\nVendors & Technology Partners\nManaging the technical relationship with ERP vendors, implementation partners and specialist service providers.\nEnsuring external partners are used effectively while maintaining clear internal engineering ownership.\nProviding informed technical challenge to vendor recommendations and proposed solutions.\nEnsuring externally delivered work meets FT engineering, security and operational expectations.\nBuilding internal knowledge from vendor and partner engagements rather than allowing expertise to remain externally concentrated.\nContributing technical input to vendor performance, technology selection and investment decisions.\nStakeholder & Cross-Team Collaboration\nBuilding strong working relationships with Product, Finance and other business stakeholders.\nTranslating business requirements and priorities into clear engineering implications, options and trade-offs.\nHelping stakeholders understand platform constraints, technical risks and investment requirements.\nPartnering with the Principal Engineer, Architecture, Security and other engineering leaders on decisions that cross platform or organisational boundaries.\nWorking constructively with specialist engineers, including Tax and Compliance engineering, on shared capabilities and dependencies.\nRepresenting ERP Services in relevant engineering and technology forums.\nTechnical and leadership experience we’re looking for\nSignificant experience leading engineering teams responsible for complex, business-critical enterprise technology.\nStrong experience with ERP platforms or similarly complex enterprise SaaS ecosystems.\nExperience with Oracle Fusion or comparable enterprise ERP platforms would be highly advantageous.\nExperience providing both people leadership and technical leadership to engineering teams.\nStrong understanding of enterprise platform engineering, including integrations, APIs, data flows and system dependencies.\nExperience owning technology through its full lifecycle, from change and delivery through to production operation and continuous improvement.\nExperience developing engineering capability and strengthening technical ownership within teams.\nExperience working with Finance or other complex enterprise business domains.\nStrong understanding of reliability,...","description_format":"text","description_chars":15292,"description_truncated":true,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual leave","Equity","Flexible schedule","Gym membership","Hybrid work","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Media & Entertainment"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-23T08:43:59Z"}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":52,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-09-23T19:42:49Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/financial-times-engineering-lead-erp-services","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/financial-times-engineering-lead-erp-services.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-23T19:42:49Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers"}}