Head of Product Engineering / Engineering

Kroo Bank Ltd; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A modern financial institution in the United Kingdom is seeking a Head of Product Engineering to strategically lead product engineering efforts. This role is pivotal in translating product and technology visions into secure, reliable digital platforms while ensuring regulatory compliance and operational excellence. The successful candidate will balance technical leadership with team development, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. The position also promotes a flexible working model, aligning closely with business and customer outcomes.

Benefits

Generous holiday time: 25 days annual leave and additional holidays

Mental health support via Spill

Employer-sponsored volunteer program

Cycle to Work scheme

Enhanced parental leave

Full healthcare via Vitality

Qualifications

• Proven experience in technical and people leadership roles.
• Expertise in delivering scalable and secure digital platforms.
• Strong understanding of modern engineering practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead product engineering to deliver high-quality, customer-focused features.
• Define and improve engineering standards for secure coding.
• Oversee technical architecture decisions for digital products.

Skills

Technical leadership

Agile methodologies

Operational excellence

Regulatory compliance

Vendor management

Continuous improvement

Education

Relevant technical degree (e.g., Computer Science, Engineering)

Tools

Modern engineering tools

Cloud services (e.g., AWS, Azure)

Job description

Overview

The Head of Product Engineering / Engineering will be pivotal in translating Kroo Bank product and technology vision into secure, scalable and reliable digital platforms. This role carries bank wide responsibility for the leadership and delivery of product engineering and software engineering, ensuring customer centric, resilient and compliant experiences across our systems and channels. The successful candidate will balance hands‑on technical leadership with people leadership, operational excellence and regulatory obligations, delivering outcomes that create value for customers and the business. Kroo has a big vision. To be the first bank that is both trusted and loved by its customers. We are helping people take control of their financial future and achieve their goals, whilst making a positive impact on the planet. Here at Kroo, doing what is right is in our DNA. We act with integrity, transparency and honesty. We think big, dream big, and relentlessly pursue our goals. We like to be bold, break new ground, and we never stop learning. But most importantly, we are on this journey together.

Responsibilities

• Lead product engineering and engineering teams to deliver high quality, customer centric features and platforms that are reliable, secure and compliant.
• Translate the enterprise product and technology strategy into a clear engineering strategy, roadmap and set of priorities aligned with the bank's vision and strategy.
• Define, embed and continually improve modern engineering standards including secure code, quality engineering, automated testing, continuous delivery, observability, and site reliability engineering.
• Own day to day technical architecture decisions for digital products and platforms, working with principal engineers and architects to ensure scalability, maintainability and security.
• Drive platform reliability and operational excellence, ensuring strong incident management, problem management, change management and post incident review practices.
• Champion effective delivery practices across cross functional squads, promoting agile ways of working, outcome focused planning, clear accountabilities and the removal of delivery blockers.
• Embed regulatory, operational risk and security requirements into the engineering lifecycle so that controls are designed in, evidenced and sustainable.
• Oversee the technical aspects of vendor and partner relationships, ensuring integrations are robust, service levels are met and technology risk is well managed.
• Manage engineering budgets in line with financial plans, including cloud spend, tooling and third party services, ensuring transparent value realisation from investments.
• Build, lead and develop a diverse and high performing community of engineering leaders and individual contributors with clear career paths, coaching and succession plans.
• Partner closely with Product, Design, Data, Operations, Risk, Compliance and other functions to align priorities, manage trade offs and ensure that engineering decisions support business and customer outcomes.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement and innovation across engineering, encouraging experimentation, reduction of technical debt and adoption of modern tools and practices.

Interview Process

We can be flexible with the structure of our interview process if someone's circumstances or timescales require it but our general structure is:

• CPTO - 30 mins
• Engineering Managers - 60 mins
• Staff Engineers - 60 mins
• Exec/founder - 30 mins

Work Location

Currently, the majority of Kroo is working fully remotely. Working remotely has changed many of our lives for the better and we are behind continuing the benefits of flexibility once restrictions are lifted. At the same time, we have a beautiful office in Farringdon, which, when used for the right things, can be a useful and powerful tool. Currently we see a blended model of working 1-2 days a week in the office, so candidates that are able to travel in occasionally are the best fit for our current working practices.

Diversity and Inclusion

We wholeheartedly uphold our commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. Every employee is highly regarded, respected, and supported without any form of judgement or prejudice. We consider Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion as fundamental pillars guiding our path in all aspects of our bank. We also ensure that reasonable adjustments are made available to all candidates throughout the recruitment process.

Hiring Policy

To all Recruitment Agencies: At Kroo Bank, agency resumes are strictly prohibited. Do not submit agency resumes or forward them to our job advertisements or Kroo Bank employees. Be aware that Kroo Bank will not assume any responsibility for fees incurred due to unsolicited resumes. To ensure a fair and efficient application process, all candidates are kindly requested to submit their applications directly through the advertised platform. We kindly ask that you refrain from reaching out to the company or its employees via email, LinkedIn, or any other communication channels for inquiries or updates. Please note that any attempts to contact us through these channels will not receive a response.

Benefits

• Generous holiday time: 25 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays, 1 Kroo bank holiday (June 24th), and 1 day off during the week of your birthday.
• Personal days: 3 personal days to use as needed.
• Employer-sponsored volunteer program: up to 4 hours per month of employer-sponsored volunteer time.
• Mental health support: access to Spill, our mental health support partner.
• Workplace pension: 5% employee contribution and 3% employer top-up.
• Top-notch equipment: MacBook laptop and support for home office set‑up if required.
• Modern office: access to our modern, bustling workspace in Farringdon, Central London.
• Cycle to Work scheme: sustainable transportation support.
• Electric Car scheme: help reduce our carbon footprint.
• Enhanced parental leave: support for starting and growing families.
• Room for growth: fast‑paced, high‑growth start‑up providing room to grow and excel.
• Full healthcare via Vitality for you and your nuclear family.