Head of AI-First Engineering

Xpertise Recruitment; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Xpertise Recruitment seeks a Head of Product Engineering to lead the engineering organisation for a suite of AI-powered SaaS products in Manchester. You will shape strategy, develop leaders, and embed AI-native practices to scale delivery and quality.

Lead Agile product engineering across multiple teams, drive architecture decisions, and partner with senior stakeholders to align technology with business priorities in a fast-growing tech business.

Qualifications

• Extensive software engineering experience within SaaS environments.
• Proven track record leading and scaling engineering teams including Technical Leads and Engineering Managers.
• Strong background in technical strategy, architecture and governance.
• Experience leading Agile and modern product engineering practices across multiple teams.
• Experience delivering AI, machine learning, or LLM-enabled products and features.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the technical strategy and target architecture across the product portfolio.
• Build, coach, and develop engineering leaders and high-performing software teams.
• Drive AI-first engineering practices across design, development, testing, and operations.
• Own engineering delivery performance, focusing on predictability, quality, and efficiency.
• Establish scalable development standards, governance frameworks, and quality processes.
• Partner with Product and senior stakeholders to align technical delivery with business priorities.
• Manage engineering capacity planning, budgets, and resource forecasting.
• Communicate technical decisions and investment requirements clearly to senior leadership.

Skills

Software architecture

People leadership

Agile practices

AI-driven development

Azure

.NET

Tools

Azure

.NET

Cloud platforms

Job description

Xpertise Recruitment seeks a Head of Product Engineering to lead the engineering organisation for a suite of AI-powered SaaS products in Manchester. You will shape strategy, develop leaders, and embed AI-native practices to scale delivery and quality.

Lead Agile product engineering across multiple teams, drive architecture decisions, and partner with senior stakeholders to align technology with business priorities in a fast-growing tech business.