Head of Engineering | xpate arbeitnow Hirehire Remote · 11/3/2026

Primetime; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

xpate is seeking a Head of Engineering in London or remote to lead a major platform and organisational transformation. You will own the end-to-end technical picture, from infrastructure to vendor strategy, and partner with the CEO and founders to reshape how the business builds software.

You will hire and guide a team of engineers, push for AI-native tooling, and drive fast, safe delivery across payment and financial systems. This is a high-impact leadership role.

Qualifications

• You have built financial systems with strong data architecture.
• You can hold the full technical picture across infrastructure, architecture and vendors.
• You are a senior engineer with a proven track record and leadership experience.
• You think and talk like a business person and collaborate transparently.
• Payments or acquiring background is a plus but not required.
• Nice to have: you are based in London.

Responsibilities

• Lead platform and organizational transformation from within the engineering team.
• Own infrastructure, architecture and vendor relations.
• Move to AI-native development with automated QA.
• Hire and mentor engineers; build a small 1–2 person expansion if needed.
• Collaborate with founders; report directly to the CEO.
• Drive data flow and secure financial systems reliability.

Skills

Platform transformation

Data architecture

LLM tooling

Business language

Job description

Role: Head of Engineering
Company: xpate
Location: London or remote
Job Type: Full-time

About xpate

xpate has been a card acquirer since 2019. It combines acquiring and banking for B2B clients only, with €100M+ in annual revenue. About 100 people work there, around 15 of them in engineering. HQ is in London, and the team is spread across Latvia, Cyprus, Serbia and Singapore.

The business is changing. xpate is moving from direct sales to distribution through platforms and partners: embedded finance and Payfac-as-a-Service. The platform has to change with it. Tooling, data flow, processes and the release cycle all need a rebuild, and much of the workflow is still tracked by hand.

xpate also wants to become AI-native. Guardrails go around the core – the data layer and financial data – so it can’t be lost, rewritten or broken. Everything else runs through an agentic harness on top, so non-engineering teams can build their own tools by prompting agents.

What you will do

Lead the platform and organizational transformation from the inside, together with the current team.

Own the whole technical picture: infrastructure, architecture and vendors.

Replace the traditional PM → engineer handoff. Test the idea that engineering and product can work as one, with engineers talking directly to the business and domain experts.

Move code writing to LLMs with automated QA. Start where mistakes are cheap and reach the critical financial components later.

Hire engineers who talk to people and ask questions, not only write code. You can bring in 1–2 people who share the vision.

Focus on internal efficiency. The business sets the direction – the job is not to set a product or market vision of your own.

First 6 months

Months 1–3: bring all data flow – customer, financial and manual – into one clear perimeter.

Months 4–6: build the harness on top, so non-engineering teams can prompt agents, create their own tools and run their workflows.

What you need to succeed

You have built financial systems: ledger, reconciliation, processing, gateway, double-entry accounting. Ideally you wrote them yourself, and you know what a few cents of error cost at scale.

You have a strong data architecture background.

You can hold the full technical picture: infrastructure, architecture and vendors.

You are a senior engineer with proven results. Team size doesn’t matter – leading 4–5 people is fine.

You know code quality and review still matter, and you are ready to change how the work gets done.

You think and talk like a business person.

You are a mature operator: collaborative, transparent, no “I know best”. You change things carefully and still make bold calls.

Payments or acquiring background is not required – any financial systems experience works.

Nice to have: you have rebuilt or transformed a team before.

Nice to have: you are based in London.

What you get

A new role with a clear mission: transform the platform and the way the company works.

Direct work with the founders, reporting to the CEO.

A team of about 15 engineers to inherit and reshape.

A profitable company moving into Payfac-as-a-Service and embedded distribution.

An AI-native setup where non-engineers build their own tools.

Year 1 is fixed pay. From year 2, shadow equity tied to P&L performance, with a path to real equity. Details to be agreed.

This overview was written from the original listing to help you understand the role. Always confirm the specifics on the employer’s application page.