Cryptography Engineering Lead

Lloyds Banking Group; Bristol; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent financial institution is seeking a Cryptography Engineering Lead to manage and inspire teams in the Cryptography Lab. This role involves leading the technical direction, ensuring secure and scalable cryptographic services, and collaborating with product owners to define the vision and strategy aligned with security goals. The ideal candidate will have a background in software engineering, leadership skills, and a solid understanding of engineering practices. The role offers a hybrid working model and a range of benefits.

Benefits

Generous pension contribution of up to 15%

Annual bonus award

Share schemes

30 days' holiday plus bank holidays

Wellbeing initiatives

Generous parental leave policies

Qualifications

• Strong leadership experience managing teams.
• Solid understanding of application architecture and agile practices.
• Experience with large, transactional applications.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering function and set technical direction.
• Collaborate across the Cryptography Lab to solve business problems.
• Transform cryptographic platforms for secure and scalable services.

Skills

Software engineering

Leadership skills

Understanding of engineering practices

Job description

JOB TITLE: Cryptography Engineering Lead

SALARY: From £90,440 dependent on experience and location

LOCATION(S): Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, London or Edinburgh

HOURS: Full time

WORKING PATTERN: Hybrid, 40% (or two days) in an office site

About this opportunity

The Chief Security Office (CSO) is a vital part of delivering the Group's vision of putting customers at the heart of everything we do, helping Britain prosper and protecting the Group and customers from security threats. We're responsible for defining and communicating Lloyds Banking Group's security strategy and providing a range of critical Enterprise Security Services which not only operate key controls that keep the Group safe but also enable the digital transformation agenda of the wider organisation.

CSO cryptography services ensure secure transactions, data privacy, compliance, and protection of banking systems. The Cryptograph Lab is updating these services for greater agility and ease of management, supporting safe business growth and the Group's goals.

We are looking for a modern technology leader who works collaboratively with other lab roles to build empowered teams that are motivated to take on business problems and realise value for customers through excellence in execution.

What will I do

• You will work collaboratively across the Cryptography Lab to build empowered teams that solve complex business problems and deliver secure, scalable cryptographic services.
• You’ll act as a modern technology leader who works collaboratively with other lab roles to build empowered teams that are motivated to take on business problems and realise value for customers through excellence in execution.
• You will be accountable for leading the engineering function - setting the technical direction and inspiring teams to deliver excellence. This includes strategic ownership of cryptography architecture and design, the solution development lifecycle, technology vendor partnerships, operational excellence through DevOps practices, the cultivation of engineering best practice, and proactive risk stewardship.
• You’ll need to have a solid background in DevOps engineering on large, sophisticated cryptography services, plus significant line, task and stakeholder management experience. Your people skills will need to be top notch. It's a fantastic opportunity to shape the Lab and have a real impact on our customers.

What will you be responsible for in this role

This role involves significant responsibility, working with Lab Product Owners to define the vision and strategy for cryptography services in line with the bank's technology and security goals. The Engineering Lead will guide technical delivery throughout the product lifecycle, emphasising crypto-agility and readiness for quantum computing and other evolving threats. Immediate action is required because our cryptography service consumers expect and deserve excellence-now.

You will lead the transformation of our cryptographic platforms to deliver secure, scalable, consumable, and agile services that meet the expectations of our internal consumers and external regulators. This includes improving the platform's technical posture, driving engineering efficiency, quality, and release velocity, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and continuous delivery.

You’ll take ownership for improving the platform's technical position whilst working and coaching a wide variety of technical engineering capabilities. We must see an increase in engineering efficiency, quality and release velocity and would look to this individual to drive that, whilst recruiting, retaining and developing talent within the platform. We aspire to a culture of learning and continuous improvement, whilst encouraging the adoption of external perspectives and good practice from the wider technology community, and with this role as the figurehead for this aspiration. We benchmark our engineering excellence and successes against leading technology firms and FinTech innovators.

Why Lloyds Banking Group

We're on an exciting journey to transform our Group and the way we're shaping finance for good. We're focusing on the future, investing in our technologies, workplaces, and colleagues to make our Group a great place for everyone. Including you.

What you’ll need

• Software engineering (coding), backed up by senior engineering leadership experience (running a team of teams)
• A solid understanding of common engineering practices (application architecture, solution design, source code control, agile software development, testing approaches, continuous integration and deployment)
• Knowledge and experience of implementing and managing large, sophisticated, data intensive, transactional and high‑performance 3rd party applications

In addition, any experience of these would be useful

• Fundamental understanding of cryptography methods and solutions.
• Full lifecycle delivery of scalable, resilient, robust systems
• Strong leadership skills
• Financial Markets technology

About working for us

Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion supporting our customers, colleagues and communities and we're committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop.

We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer Initiative.

We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns. And, as a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role with a disability, long‑term health or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme.

We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process to reduce or remove barriers. Just let us know what you need.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
• An annual bonus award, subject to Group performance
• Share schemes including free shares
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
• 30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies

Want to do amazing work, that's interesting and makes a difference to millions of people? Join our journey.