Head of Engineering - Operations

Utility Warehouse Limited; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Annual discretionary bonus 15-40%

Remote-first with London office time

Work from anywhere up to 3 weeks

Pension matched contributions

Private health insurance

Learning & development budget

Diversity & inclusion programs

Job summary

Utility Warehouse Limited in the United Kingdom seeks a Head of Engineering (Operations) to bridge engineering excellence with business strategy, shaping the tech roadmap for end-to-end customer journeys, billing, payments, and support.

You will lead up to 6 direct reports, drive AI and agentic services from concept to production, and collaborate with Commercial, Product, Operations, and Finance to align roadmaps with priorities.

Qualifications

• Experience leading large teams (up to 6 direct reports) and delivering outcomes in complex environments.
• Proven ability to drive strategy, architecture decisions, and budget/resource planning.
• Experience delivering customer-facing AI/LLM-based services into production and ensuring human-in-the-loop where needed.
• Strong software engineering discipline across agile, TDD, CD, microservices, and operability.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical strategy and roadmap for operational systems aligned with business priorities.
• Guide architectural decisions and high-quality build-versus-buy choices based on TCO.
• Lead AI & agentic innovation, standards, and architecture for customer-facing services.
• Ensure delivery of high-quality, valuable work at sustainable pace across teams.
• Set and monitor SLOs; measure impact on customers and the business.
• Manage up to 6 direct reports and oversee headcount, forecasting, and budgets.
• Collaborate with Commercial, Product, Operations, Finance, and Customer Support to align roadmaps.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic Thinking

Commercial Acumen

AI & Agentic Systems

Software Engineering

Go & React

Kubernetes

Terraform

AWS

Domain Knowledge

Stakeholder & Data Skills

Tools

Go

React

Kubernetes

Terraform

AWS

Job description

Hi! We're UW. We’re on a mission to take the headache out of utilities by providing them all in one place. One bill for energy, broadband, mobile and insurance and a whole lot of savings!

We’re aiming to double in size as we help more people to stop wasting time and money. Big ambitions, to be delivered by people like you.

Got your attention? Read on...

We put people first. It’s all about you..

To thrive in this role, you bring a blend of strategic leadership, commercial sharpness, and deep technical experience:

Leadership & Strategic Thinking: Proven ability to lead, inspire, and grow large teams (up to 6 direct reports including Senior Engineering Managers and Engineering Managers) while driving high engagement and performance.

Commercial Acumen & Simplicity: Skilled at cutting through complexity to make things simple, treating Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as a primary metric for build-versus-buy decisions.

AI & Agentic Systems Experience: Demonstrable experience taking customer-facing AI/LLM-based agentic services into production, with a clear vision of where automation adds value and where humans must stay in the loop.

Software Engineering Excellence: Deeply passionate about best practices including agile, TDD, continuous delivery, microservices, event-driven architecture, domain-driven design, and operability.

Modern Tech Stack: Knowledgeable and close enough to technology to guide architectures built on Go, React, Kubernetes, Terraform, and AWS.

Domain Knowledge: Ideally experienced in energy, telecoms, payments, insurance, or finance sectors.

Stakeholder & Data Skills: Data-led in decision making and highly skilled at building strong relationships and influencing stakeholders across the business.

We work together. Your team and the people you will work with...

You’ll report directly into our Chief Technology Officer and work hand-in-hand with Operations Directors. You will lead the engineering teams responsible for our core operational functions—covering end-to-end customer journeys as well as day-to-day billing, payments, collections, and customer services.

You will also collaborate closely with cross-functional peers across Commercial, Product, Operations, Finance, and Customer Support to align technical roadmaps with overarching business priorities.

We deliver progress. What you’ll do and how you will make an impact.

As Head of Engineering (Operations), you will bridge engineering excellence and business strategy to build resilient, high-performing systems.

Key responsibilities include:

Driving Technical Strategy: Owning and delivering the technical strategy and roadmap for operational systems, aligned directly with business priorities.

Architecture & Decision Making: Guiding and approving architectural decisions and making high-quality build-versus-buy choices considering Total Cost of Ownership.

AI & Agentic Innovation: Leading the development, delivery, standards, and architecture for customer-facing AI and agentic services.

Delivery & Workload Management: Ensuring engineering teams consistently deliver high-quality, valuable work at a healthy, sustainable pace.

Setting Standards & SLOs: Establishing Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and using data to measure and boost the customer and business impact of your teams.

Team Leadership & Development: Managing up to 6 direct reports, setting clear expectations, recognising success, addressing performance swiftly, and providing the context needed for effective team decision-making.

Budget & Resource Management: Overseeing headcount, forecasting, and budgets for your engineering area.

Additional Information

So why pick UW?

We’ve got big ambitions so there’s going to be plenty of challenges. There are also a lot of benefits:

• Competitive salary: We benchmark against the industry and will share the salary openly during our first conversation.
• Performance bonus: An annual discretionary bonus ranging from 15-40%.
• Flexible working: Although we operate a remote-first model, we anticipate that some additional time in our London office may be valuable for People Leaders joining the business, particularly to support collaboration and team connection.
• Work from anywhere: You can work abroad for up to three weeks, twice every tax year.
• Holiday: 25 days plus bank holidays (increasing with tenure), with the option to trade up to five days each year.
• UW discounts: Save on our services and get a free Cashback Card.
• Future planning: Matched-contribution pension scheme and life assurance (up to 4x salary).
• Family first: Policies designed to help you and your family thrive.
• Flexible benefits: An allowance for private health insurance, dental insurance, or gym membership.
• Growth: A dedicated learning and development budget and bi-annual promotion cycles.
• Inclusion: Join belonging groups that help shape our culture.
• Events: Company-wide celebrations including the ‘Great Big Get Together’ and our ‘Good Hearted Go-Getter Awards’.

Not sure you meet all the requirements? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other underrepresented groups tend not to apply for jobs if they think they may not meet every qualification, when in fact they often do.

We provide equal opportunities, a diverse and inclusive work environment, and fairness for everyone. You are welcome to apply no matter your age, disability, gender, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity status, race, religion or belief, or sexual orientation. Please don’t be afraid to ask about what we can do to support your needs. All requests will be carefully and fairly considered.

Please note, if you are successful and offered a role at UW, you will be subject to a background check. Where checks are unsatisfactory or incomplete and/or a failure to reveal information relating to convictions that you are required to identify as part of the background checks, could lead to withdrawal of an offer of employment.