{"id":3160784,"url":"https://alion.io/job/unidays-head-of-engineering","title":"Head of Engineering","company":{"id":1755798,"name":"UNiDAYS","domain":"myunidays.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/myunidays-com","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"HiBob","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":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":124000,"max_usd":233000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":71},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-23T12:29:14Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-23","last_verified_at":"2026-11-03T14:38:01Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":11,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":11},"description":"We're looking for a hands-on Head of Engineering to build and lead engineering for a new business unit at UNiDAYS. You'll set the technical direction, stay close to the code, and build the team, working closely with Product to turn ideas into products that people use. This is a role for a builder. You'll shape how the unit's engineering works from early on, and the role will grow in scope as the unit growsResponsibilities\nWhat we need you to do Build the business unit's engineering function: team structure, ways of working and hiring.\nSet the technical direction and architecture for the unit's products, ensuring scalability, security and performance.\nStay hands-on: contribute code, prototype new ideas, and lead by example in design and code reviews.\nPartner with Product and Design leadership to shape the roadmap, turning business goals into engineering plans and clear trade-offs.\nOwn delivery and quality, with healthy engineering practices, observability and incident response.\nLead, mentor and develop the team, using the career framework to support growth and performance.\nEvolve the team and its structure as the unit grows, and develop future leaders within it.\nWork with Platform and Data teams to use and shape shared tooling, pipelines and infrastructure.\nRepresent engineering to senior stakeholders, communicating progress, risk and cost clearly.\nFoster a collaborative and inclusive environment where the team can thrive and innovate.\nThis role sits at Head of Engineering level on the UNiDAYS Software Engineering Career Framework (people manager track).\nEngineering Core: Influence\nEngineering Craft: Influence\nQuality: Evangelise\nSystems Engineering: Evangelise\nEngineering Strategy: Evangelise\nPeople Management: Evangelise\nWe Offer:The chance to build a new business unit's engineering and shape its technology and team.\nA collaborative and supportive work environment that fosters innovation.\nA competitive salary and benefits package.\nA role that grows in scope as the business unit grows.\nRequirements\nWhat we need you to have doneLed and managed engineering teams, owning engineering for a product area, business unit or company.\nBuilt something from an early stage (a new team, product or business) and helped it grow.\nStrong coding skills and a desire to stay hands-on.\nSet technical direction and architecture in a cloud-native environment (e.g. AWS).\nStrong product sense, and effective partnership with Product and Design.\nExcellent communication and stakeholder management, including with senior leadership.\nBonus Points:Experience with data-heavy products and data pipelines (e.g. warehousing, event streaming).\nExperience building or leading teams that run recommendation engines or personalisation systems.\nExperience taking machine learning pipelines into production (e.g. training, deployment, monitoring).\nExperience building and scaling distributed systems.\nExperience leading engineering managers or leads.\nBenefits\nThis is your opportunity to Join the world’s largest student verification network and help shape the future of how brands connect with the next generation. We engage a community of 23M+ verified students and graduates across 115 markets, making us a truly global platform. Our brand is a powerhouse in the UK, and we’re rapidly accelerating our presence worldwide-especially in the US, Germany, India, France, Canada, and Australia.We partner with 850+ of the world’s biggest brands, bringing their products and services to the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s professionals-driving engagement, building affinity, and delivering real results.\nWe offer a fast-paced, fun, and social working environment where you can truly make an impact. We believe work should enhance and complement your life, which is why we provide a hybrid working model. You will work together in person a minimum of 2 days per week and work from home for up to 3 days a week.\nWe work hard at UNiDAYS, and we believe in fair compensation for that hard work. That’s why we’re proud to offer all employees full access to our comprehensive benefits package.\nOur perks include:\n25 days holiday per year increasing with length of service, plus bank holidays\nCompetitive salaries\n4pm finishes every Friday\nCompany pension scheme\nPrivate health insurance (BUPA)\nDental Insurance (BUPA)\nIncome protection policy\nLife assurance policy\nEmployee Assistance Program\nEnhanced parental leave pay\nRegular team building activities\n£150 pounds towards your home office set up\nWe are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4730,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Dental insurance","Health insurance","Home office","Hybrid work","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-23T16:04:56Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker, Senior or Specialist Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker; Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-03T08:26:00+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":10,"expected_fill_days":54,"reasons":["conf:0","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/unidays-head-of-engineering","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/unidays-head-of-engineering.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-03T17:17:44Z","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":24079,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-04T00:00:00Z"}},"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":1755798},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1755798"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Funidays-head-of-engineering"},{"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%2Funidays-head-of-engineering"},{"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%2Funidays-head-of-engineering"},{"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/unidays-head-of-engineering\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Funidays-head-of-engineering"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3160784}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"myunidays.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3160784},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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