Head of Engineering

WRK Digital; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 126,000 - 154,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Private healthcare

Excellent benefits

Job summary

WRK digital is recruiting a Head of Engineering for a global FinTech organisation with hybrid London/Manchester working options. The role shapes engineering strategy, builds capability and drives innovation across proprietary platforms while ensuring security, resilience and regulatory compliance.

You will lead an international engineering function, partner with senior stakeholders, and champion modern practices to deliver scalable, high-performing products at pace.

Qualifications

• 5+ years hands-on software and product engineering.
• Experience in FinTech or regulated sectors.
• 3+ years leading engineering teams delivering business-critical platforms.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the engineering strategy for a portfolio of financial technology products.
• Lead and develop an international engineering organisation.
• Drive modern software engineering practices across product development, platform engineering and cloud services.
• Partner with Product teams to align engineering delivery with strategic objectives and outcomes.
• Champion engineering excellence through automation, observability and data-driven decisions.
• Establish and mature DevSecOps and Site Reliability Engineering practices.

Skills

Software engineering

Leadership

Cloud & DevOps

Regulated environments

Azure

Tools

.NET

Azure

Job description

London (Flexible Hybrid. Must be UK based)

Up to £140,000 + Bonus + Private Healthcare + Excellent Benefits

WRK digital are delighted to be acting as the exclusive recruitment partner to a global FinTech organisation as they continue a significant investment in product engineering, platform modernisation and international growth.

Our client operates at scale within the payments and financial technology sector, delivering proprietary platforms that support global transactions, client onboarding, risk management and business-critical financial operations.

Following sustained growth and continued investment in technology, they are seeking a Head of Engineering to lead their product engineering function and help shape the next generation of their platform capability.

This is an opportunity to join a business at a pivotal stage in its engineering journey, where you'll play a key role in defining engineering strategy, building capability and driving technology innovation across a global organisation.

The Opportunity

As Head of Engineering, you'll take ownership of the engineering strategy, delivery and technical direction of a suite of mission-critical proprietary platforms.

You'll work closely with Product, Technology and Business leadership to ensure engineering delivers measurable business value whilst maintaining the highest standards of security, resilience and regulatory compliance.

The successful candidate will combine strong technical depth with proven leadership capability, helping to build a modern engineering organisation capable of delivering secure, scalable and high-performing products at pace.

This role requires a leader who remains close enough to technology to challenge decisions, support engineering teams and drive technical excellence whilst operating as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the engineering strategy for a portfolio of proprietary financial technology products.
• Lead and develop a growing international engineering organisation.
• Drive modern software engineering practices across product development, platform engineering and cloud services.
• Partner with Product teams to align engineering delivery with strategic objectives and business outcomes.
• Champion engineering excellence through automation, observability and data-driven decision making.
• Drive improvements across deployment frequency, lead time, reliability and engineering performance metrics.
• Lead adoption of modern architectures including cloud-native, microservices and event-driven systems.
• Establish and mature DevSecOps and Site Reliability Engineering practices across the function.
• Develop scalable engineering processes that support growth whilst maintaining agility.
• Build strong relationships across Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance and Executive Leadership teams.
• Provide technical leadership for strategic initiatives including platform modernisation, API development and operational resilience.
• Support the continued growth of a globally distributed engineering function and external technology partnerships.

What We're Looking For

We're interested in speaking with technologists who have successfully combined a career in software engineering with leadership & software delivery within regulated environments.

You'll ideally bring:

• 5+ years of hands on experience within software and product engineering.
• Experience within Financial Services, FinTech, Payments or other regulated sectors.
• 3+ years leading engineering teams responsible for modern, business-critical financial platforms.
• Direct ownership of end-to-end software engineering delivery, spanning development, cloud infrastructure, APIs and platform engineering.
• Experience building and scaling high-performing engineering teams.
• Strong knowledge of modern engineering practices, CI/CD, automation and DevOps.
• Experience driving cloud transformation and modern architecture initiatives.
• A strong understanding of engineering metrics and continuous improvement practices.
• Knowledge of operational resilience, security and regulatory requirements within financial services.
• Technical expertise within Microsoft technologies, particularly .NET and Azure, would be highly advantageous.

About You

Beyond technical capability, we're looking for someone who can thrive in a growing organisation where not everything is fully defined.

You'll be comfortable:

• Creating structure where it doesn't yet exist.
• Challenging constructively and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Balancing delivery, engineering quality and commercial outcomes.
• Building credibility with both engineers and business leaders.
• Leading through change and bringing people with you.

Most importantly, you'll be a builder. Someone who enjoys developing teams, improving engineering capability and shaping the future direction of a product-led technology organisation.

Why Join?

• Influence the future direction of a growing global technology organisation.
• Lead the evolution of business-critical financial platforms.
• Work alongside senior leadership to shape technology strategy.
• Build and develop international engineering capability.
• Join a business investing heavily in technology, engineering and innovation.
• Modern offices and flexible hybrid working options in Manchester or London/ You must be UK based for this one.

Package

• Annual bonus
• Additional flexible benefits

WRK digital are acting as the exclusive recruitment partner for this appointment. For a confidential discussion around the next steps, please contact Ellie at WRK digital.