Senior Director of Engineering

We are looking for a highly accomplished Senior Director of Engineering to lead the design, development, and delivery of large-scale, consumer-facing digital platforms. This role is ideal for a hands-on engineering leader who combines deep technical expertise with strategic thinking and has a proven track record of building high-performing engineering organisations. The successful candidate will drive engineering excellence, accelerate software delivery through AI-enabled engineering practices, and partner closely with Product, Design, and Data teams to build scalable, secure, and reliable technology platforms.

The core responsibilities for the job include the following:

Engineering Leadership:

• Define and execute the engineering strategy aligned with business priorities.
• Lead multiple engineering teams through engineering managers and technical leaders.
• Foster a culture of ownership, innovation, engineering excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Mentor senior engineering leaders and help build future technical leadership.

AI-Enabled Engineering:

• Champion AI-assisted software development across the engineering organisation.
• Drive adoption of AI-powered coding assistants, code review, testing automation, and developer productivity tools.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and establish engineering best practices for their adoption.
• Build engineering processes that enable lean, high-performing teams to deliver at scale.

Technical Architecture and System Design:

• Lead architecture reviews and make key technical decisions for large-scale distributed systems.
• Define engineering standards for application architecture, APIs, cloud infrastructure, security, and observability.
• Ensure platforms meet high standards of scalability, reliability, performance, and cost optimisation.
• Provide hands-on technical guidance during critical production incidents and complex engineering challenges.

Delivery and Execution:

• Translate business objectives into clear engineering roadmaps and execution plans.
• Drive predictable delivery while maintaining high engineering quality.
• Identify risks proactively and remove execution bottlenecks.
• Lead post-incident reviews and implement long-term improvements.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Partner closely with product management, design, data, security, and platform engineering teams.
• Communicate engineering strategy, technical trade-offs, and delivery progress to executive stakeholders.
• Ensure engineering decisions align with customer experience and business outcomes.

Requirements:

• A bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related discipline.
• 17+ years of software engineering experience with significant leadership responsibilities.
• Proven experience leading large engineering organisations through multiple engineering managers.
• Strong background building and scaling high-traffic consumer-facing platforms.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems, microservices architecture, cloud-native applications, and modern software engineering practices.
• Experience with Kubernetes, containerisation, APIs, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), and DevOps practices.
• Demonstrated success implementing AI-assisted engineering workflows and improving developer productivity.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills.
• A technology leader who remains hands-on when solving complex technical challenges.
• Passionate about building engineering organisations that move fast without compromising quality.
• Experienced in scaling distributed engineering teams and delivering large, mission-critical platforms.
• Comfortable working with executive leadership while earning credibility with engineering teams.
• Focused on measurable business outcomes rather than process-heavy management.
• A strong mentor who develops engineering talent and builds a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous learning.
• Preferred Industry Experience: Candidates from high-scale product organisations such as the Internet, SaaS, FinTech, e-commerce, consumer technology, digital platforms, or enterprise software will be preferred.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with AI coding assistants, engineering automation, or developer productivity platforms.
• Exposure to platform engineering, internal developer platforms, or engineering enablement initiatives.
• Familiarity with modern observability, security, and compliance frameworks.
• Experience leading engineering transformation within product-based organisations.