{"id":1536525,"url":"https://alion.io/job/iris-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops","title":"Director of Engineering (InfraOps)","company":{"id":51452,"name":"IRIS Software Group","domain":"iris.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/iris-software-group","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":95000,"max_usd":178000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":66},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"FinOps","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":false},{"name":"GitHub","optional":false},{"name":"Incident Management","optional":false},{"name":"ISO 27001","optional":false},{"name":"Jira","optional":false},{"name":"Service Desk","optional":false},{"name":"SOC 2","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-30T16:54:02Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-30","last_verified_at":"2026-10-21T22:32:31Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":21,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":21},"description":"About IRIS\nIRIS Software Group is one of the UK's largest privately held software companies, trusted by 100,000+ businesses, schools and accountancy firms to keep their operations running. Our software pays 1 in 6 UK employees, supports over 12,000 schools, and is relied on by 91 of the top 100 UK accountancy firms.\nWe're a Great Place to Work® certified employer, recognised for our commitment to well-being, inclusion and development - and we're growing fast.\nThe Opportunity\nAs Director of Engineering (InfraOps), you will lead a central function of approximately 45 engineers responsible for Federated InfraOps, Core Infrastructure, Datastores, Service Desk operations, and near 24/7 incident support.\nThis is a leadership role, not a technical-authority role. You will be accountable for the organisational capability, service delivery, operating model, budget, and long-term effectiveness of the InfraOps function. Technical direction is provided through Principal Engineers and specialist technical leaders; your focus is ensuring the organisation, people, processes, governance, and commercial arrangements enable engineering teams to succeed.\nYou will be responsible for creating a predictable, well-governed, and trusted service organisation that supports a large and complex software estate while balancing cost, operational resilience, and service quality.\nKey Responsibilities:\nFunction Leadership & Operating Model\nYou will:\nOwn the shape and operating model of the InfraOps function, its structure, roles, service offering and ways of working.\n\nDefine and evolve the organisational structure across Federated InfraOps, Core Infrastructure, Datastores and Support.\n\nEstablish clear service ownership, routing and escalation paths to remove ambiguity and single points of failure.\n\nDefine service boundaries and accountabilities between InfraOps and product engineering teams.\n\nSet objectives, priorities, performance measures, and service expectations aligned to wider Engineering goals.\n\nEscalate ownership, funding and operational risks appropriately to Engineering leadership.\n\nPeople Leadership & Organisational Capability\nYou will lead a distributed organisation spanning the UK, US, India, and third-party partners.\nResponsibilities include:\nLine management and development of InfraOps managers and team leaders.\n\nWorkforce planning, succession planning, and organisational design.\n\nRecruitment, skills development, career frameworks, and talent growth across all levels.\n\nBuilding a collaborative, automation-focused culture across multiple geographies.\n\nManaging partner organisations and outsourced resources to ensure cost-effective, high-quality service delivery.\n\nService Desk, Incident Management & Operational Support\nYou will ensure dependable support services for business-critical applications across the IRIS portfolio.\nYou will:\nOwn the governance of engineering service desk operations.\n\nOversee access and licence management processes.\n\nEnsure sustainable on-call and incident response coverage with appropriate escalation paths and runbooks.\n\nPartner with Critical Incident Management teams to deliver effective technical responses during major incidents.\n\nDefine and monitor service-level expectations, driving continuous operational improvement.\n\nPlatform, Supplier & Tooling Management\nYou will have responsibility for engineering-wide platforms, tooling, and supplier relationships.\nKey accountabilities include:\nCommercial ownership of function-wide suppliers and engineering platforms.\n\nLeading supplier renewals, negotiations, licensing reviews and vendor governance.\n\nDriving consolidation toward strategic platforms including Azure, AWS, Jira and GitHub Enterprise.\n\nCloud cost visibility, FinOps governance, forecasting and optimisation.\n\nEnsuring platform assets remain secure, compliant, patched and operationally effective.\n\nGovernance, Compliance & Risk Management\nYou will establish and maintain a strong operational control environment.\nResponsibilities include:\nGovernance of change management, release enablement, access administration, disaster recovery testing and shared services.\n\nSupporting compliance and assurance initiatives including SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR.\n\nIdentifying operational, resilience, security and capacity risks and driving mitigation plans.\n\nPartnering with technical leadership to ensure platform standards and controls are adopted consistently.\n\nBudget & Commercial Ownership\nYou will own the financial management of the InfraOps function.\nThis includes:\nBudget ownership across headcount, contractors, partners and tooling.\n\nCapacity modelling and investment planning.\n\nProviding transparency on costs, service delivery and resource allocation.\n\nBalancing operational demands against finite capacity and budget constraints.\n\nBuilding and defending business cases for investment in people, tooling and infrastructure.\n\nWhat We're Looking For\nEssential Experience & Qualifications:\nDegree-qualified in Computer Science, Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience.\n\nPrevious Director-level (or equivalent senior leadership) experience running an infrastructure, InfraOps or operations function of comparable scale, ideally within SaaS or cloud-native software.\n\nProven experience (10+ years) in infrastructure, InfraOps or operations engineering, with at least 3 years leading and line-managing managers and teams.\n\nRequired Knowledge & Experience\nProven experience running a central InfraOps, infrastructure or operations function supporting multiple product teams, ideally across a diverse, M&A-driven portfolio.\n\nStrong track record of designing and evolving team structures and operating models across in-house and partner/offshore resources.\n\nDemonstrable ownership of budgets, headcount and supplier commercials, including renewals, negotiations, licensing and cost optimisation.\n\nExperience running service desk, incident-management and on-call/24-7-oriented support models.\n\nSolid working knowledge of multi-cloud (Azure and AWS) and hybrid/private-cloud environments.\n\nExperience operating within SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or similar compliance frameworks.\n\nStrong commercial acumen with the ability to articulate the cost and value of engineering operations to senior stakeholders.\n\nKey Leadership Competencies\nSuccess in this role requires strength in:\nOperating-model design\n\nService ownership and accountability\n\nPragmatic prioritisation\n\nDistributed team leadership\n\nManagement delegation\n\nTalent development and succession planning\n\nOperational governance\n\nService improvement\n\nCommercial and vendor management\n\nFinOps and cost visibility\n\nRisk management\n\nFinancial ownership\n\nExecutive stakeholder management\n\nValue articulation and business alignment\n\nPersonal Attributes\nWe are looking for a leader who is:\nPragmatic, organised and outcome-focused.\n\nHighly effective at building trusted cross-functional relationships.\n\nComfortable delegating authority and holding teams accountable.\n\nCalm under pressure and skilled at making balanced decisions.\n\nAn excellent communicator who can simplify complex operational challenges.\n\nPassionate about developing people and building high-performing teams.\n\nDesirable Experience\nExperience leading infrastructure consolidation or cloud migration programmes.\n\nExperience managing teams across the UK, US and India.\n\nFamiliarity with FinOps practices and product-level cost allocation.\n\nExperience partnering with Principal or Staff-level engineering leaders, maintaining a clear separation between technical authority and functional leadership.\n\nWhy You’ll Love Working Here\nImpact: Your work will influence millions globally.\n\nGrowth: Continuous learning and career development opportunities.\n\nBelonging: A culture that celebrates diversity and empowers every individual.\n\nReady to Apply?\nClick Apply - we’re excited to learn about your unique perspective and experience. If you need adjustments during the process, let us know. We’re committed to making this opportunity accessible to everyone.\nWhat to expect from our hiring process\nOur process is designed to be fair, transparent and straightforward. Stages vary depending on the role - more senior positions may involve additional steps, and some areas include role-specific assessments such as a technical test or case study - but typically you can expect:\nApplication review - we assess your experience and potential\n\nInitial call - a short conversation to learn about you and share more about the role\n\nSkills assessment - tailored to the position, e.g. case study, coding challenge or portfolio review\n\nFinal interview - meet the team and explore how you'll make an IMPACT at IRIS\n\nWe'll always walk you through the specific stages at the start of the process so you can prepare with confidence.\nIf you need any adjustments or accommodations during the process, let us know, we’re committed to making this experience accessible for everyone.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8962,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Continuous learning"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["EdTech Platforms","Payroll Services","HR & Payroll Software","Accounting & Tax Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-30T19:02:55Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":64,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.853,"p_room":0.75,"age_days":20,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:late"],"computed_at":"2026-10-21T05:46:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/iris-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/iris-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-22T01:47:33Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1069,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-23T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":51452},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=51452"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Firis-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Firis-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Firis-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/iris-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Firis-software-group-director-of-engineering-infraops"}]}