Head of Engineering - Manufacturing (AI Native)

Ifs1; Staines-upon-Thames; On-site; GBP 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

IFS seeks a Head of Engineering Leader to steer the Manufacturing, Sustainability and Supply Chain Product organization. This senior role oversees Directors, Architects, and Principal Engineers, shaping strategy and execution to align with product vision and business priorities.

You will drive AI-enabled capabilities, establish scalable operating models, and coach leaders to deliver high quality outcomes with a strong customer focus, while remaining technically credible.

Qualifications

• Strong foundation in software engineering and enterprise application development.
• Experience leading senior technical experts and leaders.
• Proven track record delivering large-scale software across multiple teams.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive engineering strategy across multiple domains.
• Lead organizational design and succession planning for the engineering function.
• Establish consistent operating models and execution practices.
• Coach leaders of leaders to scale leadership capability.

Skills

Leadership

Software engineering

Architectural design

AI strategy

Stakeholder management

Tools

CI/CD

DevOps

Observability

Job description

We are looking for a Head of Engineering Leader to lead in the Manufacturing, Sustainability and Supply Chain Product organization at IFS. This role operates at a strategic and organizational level, overseeing a multi-layered engineering organization comprising Engineering Directors, Architects, and Principal Engineers. You will be responsible for defining and executing engineering strategy across multiple teams and domains, ensuring alignment with product vision, architecture direction, and business priorities. While this is a senior leadership role, technical depth and sound engineering judgment remain critical. You are expected to guide architectural direction, influence key technical decisions, and ensure strong engineering discipline across the organization. AI is a core enabler and strategic priority in this role. You will drive enterprise-wide adoption of AI-assisted engineering and AI-powered product capabilities, ensuring measurable impact on both engineering productivity and customer value.

What You'll Do

Organizational Leadership

• Lead a multi-layered engineering organization, including Engineering Directors, Architects, and Principal Engineers
• Define and execute the engineering strategy for Manufacturing, aligned with product and company-wide technology direction
• Drive organizational design, capability building, and succession planning
• Build a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement
• Scale leadership capability by coaching and developing leaders of leaders

Delivery and Execution

• Own delivery outcomes across multiple teams, ensuring predictability, quality, and timely execution at scale
• Establish and evolve consistent engineering operating models and execution practices
• Balance business priorities, technical investments, and operational excellence
• Ensure teams operate with a "you build it, you run it" mindset

Technical & Architectural Leadership

• Provide strategic technical direction across teams, in close collaboration with Architecture
• Influence and govern architecture decisions, platform evolution, and system design standards
• Ensure high standards across: Cloud-native architecture, CI/CD and DevOps practices, Automated testing, observability, and security
• Maintain strong technical credibility and intervene hands-on where it adds the most value

AI Leadership

• Drive organization-wide adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices
• Enable teams to improve delivery speed, quality, and confidence using AI
• Guide development of AI-enabled Manufacturing capabilities
• Ensure AI usage is practical, responsible, and outcome-driven

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, and Manufacturing domain leaders
• Aligning engineering execution with business priorities and customer outcomes
• Represent Engineering in senior leadership and strategic forums

Manufacturing Domain Leadership

• Provide strong leadership across key Manufacturing domains, including:
• End-to-end Manufacturing lifecycle (Plan, Build, Quality, Maintain
• Regulatory and industry-specific requirements
• Large-scale, configurable, multi-tenant Manufacturing Solutions
• Aligning Manufacturing strategy with platform, data, and integration capabilities

Required Background

• Strong foundation in software engineering and enterprise application development
• Extensive experience leading leaders (Directors/Managers) and senior technical experts
• Proven track record delivering large-scale, complex software systems across multiple teams
• Deep understanding of modern architectures (cloud-native, APIs, distributed systems, agentic workflows)
• Ability to operate effectively at both strategic and technical levels
• Strong communication, decision-making, and stakeholder management skills
• Customer obsession, ability to work hands on with customers on site, including travel to key manufacturing customer locations.

Preferred Experience

• Manufacturing, ERP, or industrial enterprise software
• Platform or multi-product engineering leadership
• Experience scaling engineering organizations and driving transformation
• AI-enabled enterprise product development
• Executive-level stakeholder engagement

What We’re Looking For

• You balance strategic leadership with strong technical depth
• You lead leaders and build high-performing organizations
• You create clarity and alignment while empowering teams to succeed
• You care deeply about quality, sustainability, and customer value
• You see AI as a practical enabler of transformation
• You scale impact by enabling others, not controlling them

As a step in our recruitment process, all final candidates will undergo a background check, to get us an understanding of our future employees.

We respectfully decline all offers of recruitment and/or advertising assistance.

IFS Fact

IFS develops and delivers enterprise software for customers around the world