Commerce & Payments: Head of Product & Engineering

The Economist; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension/401(k)

Private health insurance

Employee Assistance Program

Work From Anywhere up to 25 days/year

Annual and parental leave

Volunteer days

Free Economist content

Job summary

The Economist is seeking a Head of Product & Engineering for Commerce & Payments to unify product and engineering ownership of the domain. You will lead cross-functional teams to evolve platforms, pricing, and customer journeys that underpin subscription revenue and improve commercial agility.

This senior role requires deep experience in payments, subscriptions and commerce, with a proven ability to translate business goals into technical delivery.

Qualifications

• Experience leading product and engineering teams for high-volume, customer-facing commerce or payments platforms.
• Strong understanding of modern payment ecosystems, gateways and recurring payments.
• Experience with subscription platforms, billing, renewals and pricing models.
• Ability to translate commercial opportunities into product and technology priorities.
• Technical depth to engage in architecture, data flows and high-availability systems.

Responsibilities

• Own Commerce & Payments end-to-end roadmap with accountability for outcomes.
• Shape commerce strategy to support evolving subscription models and pricing.
• Lead Engineering Managers, Product Managers, Designers and senior ICs.
• Drive key KPIs: checkout conversion, renewal success, retention and revenue.
• Modernise and simplify commerce architecture for scalability and resilience.
• Enable experimentation for pricing, packaging and subscription propositions.
• Maintain high standards for architecture, security and operational reliability.
• Build strategic partnerships with Finance, Marketing, Customer and Partners.
• Hands-on involvement to balance architecture with delivery constraints.

Skills

Commerce engineering leadership

Payments expertise

Subscription platform experience

Commercial product leadership

Engineering credibility

Team leadership

Complex ecosystem integration

Data and experimentation

Business case construction

Team building

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

Job description

The Economist is seeking a Head of Product & Engineering for Commerce & Payments to unify product and engineering ownership of the domain. You will lead cross-functional teams to evolve platforms, pricing, and customer journeys that underpin subscription revenue and improve commercial agility.

This senior role requires deep experience in payments, subscriptions and commerce, with a proven ability to translate business goals into technical delivery.