Senior Director - Engineering Excellence

SD Worx; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

C-level sponsorship for initiatives

Impact on 1,400+ people

Resources for pushing AI boundaries

Job summary

A leading European provider of Payroll & HR services is seeking a Senior Director of Engineering Excellence to lead transformative initiatives within its engineering teams. This strategic role focuses on driving AI-native capabilities and fostering a collaborative environment for over 800 engineers. Key responsibilities include acting as the Product Owner for engineering experience and setting standards for quality and innovation. Join us to scale our impact and shape the future of HR technology.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering, 5+ in leading transformations.
• Experience with AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot.
• Understanding of cloud-native architectures and security.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Engineering Centre of Excellence to drive AI-native transformation.
• Act as Product Owner for the Internal Developer Platform.
• Cultivate talent and community within the engineering teams.

Skills

Change Agent Mindset

AI Coding Tools

Cloud-native Architectures

DevOps Patterns

Collaborative Leadership

Job description

SD Worx is a leading European provider of Payroll & HR services with global reach. We have offices in Europe and an office in Mauritius. Our goal? We bring people solutions to life, so companies of any size can turn Human Resources into a source of value for the business and the people in it.

are moving beyond the era of traditional agile transformation into the era of AI-native engineering. At SD Worx, we believe the next leap in productivity won’t come from "working harder," but from fundamentally reimagining the developer workflow.

We are seeking a visionary Senior Director of Engineering Excellence to own the "Operating System" for our 800+ engineers. This is not a delivery role—it is a high-leverage strategic role. Your mandate is to build the environment where exponential ("100x") impact is possible—shifting our culture from manual coding to AI-augmented craftsmanship, and from ticket-taking to value creation.

This role can be based in Europe.

You will act as the Product Owner for our Engineering Experience, providing the "Golden Paths," tooling, and coaching that allow our teams to focus on solving customer problems rather than fighting infrastructure.

Your Mission

You will lead the Engineering Centre of Excellence (CoE) with a clear remit:

• Enable: Remove friction by providing world‑class tooling and "Golden Paths" that make the right way the easy way.
• Augment: Lead the transition to agentic AI workflows, defining how humans and AI collaborate to ship software faster and safer.
• Set the Bar: Define non‑negotiable standards for quality and security, ensuring our autonomy doesn't come at the cost of coherence.

Key Impact Areas

1. Driving the AI‑Native Transformation

• Define and execute the strategy for AI‑augmented engineering (GitHub Copilot, agentic workflows, automated remediation).
• Move the organization from "experimenting with AI" to standardizing it as a core competency, measuring the impact on velocity and code quality.
• Modernize our approach to AI to accelerate refactoring and reduce technical debt.

2. Product Owner for the "Internal Developer Platform" (IDP)

• Build and maintain Golden Paths—standardized, self‑service templates for infrastructure, CI/CD, and observability that reduce developer cognitive load.
• Drive adoption through experience, not just mandate. Measure success via Developer Experience (DevEx) scores and adoption rates.

3. Cultivating Talent & Community

• Lead the SD Worx Campus team and Practice Guilds (Frontend, Backend, QA) to drive peer‑to‑peer learning and standardization.
• Deploy "Enablement Crews"—swat teams of experts who embed with tribes to solve bottlenecks or upskill teams on new patterns.
• Design career paths that reward both deep specialization (T‑shaped skills) and high‑leverage generalists.

4. Governance with Speed

• Establish automated quality gates (e.g., security scanning, architectural compliance) that enforce standards without slowing down deployment.
• Partner with the Architecture CoE to manage the "Buy vs. Build" strategy and vendor ecosystem.

Success Metrics

• Developer Experience (DevEx) Score: Satisfaction with tooling and friction‑free flows.
• DORA Metrics: Deployment frequency, Lead time, Change failure rate, MTTR.
• AI Adoption & Efficiency: % of code generated/augmented; measurable reduction in "toil."
• Golden Path Adoption: % of services built using paved roads.

What You Bring

• Experience: 10+ years in software engineering, with 5+ years leading engineering transformation, platform engineering, or developer experience at scale (500+ engineers).
• The "Change Agent" Gene: You have a track record of shifting engineering culture. You know how to sell a vision, build coalitions, and overcome resistance.
• AI Pragmatism: You are hands‑on with the latest AI coding tools (Copilot, Cursor, etc.) and understand the difference between hype and genuine productivity gains.
• Product Mindset: You don't just build tools; you solve problems for your internal customers. You use data to prioritize.
• Technical Depth: Deep understanding of cloud‑native architectures, DevOps patterns, and security‑by‑design. You can debate architecture with Principal Engineers.
• Leadership Style: Collaborative, empathetic, and "servant‑leader" oriented. You lead and coach through influence and value creation, not command‑and‑control.

Why Join SD Worx?

Shape the Future: You will be the architect of our HR tech & services future, with the budget and C‑level sponsorship to make real change.

Scale: Your decisions will impact 1,400+ people and products used across 27 countries.

Innovation: We are committed to being a leader in AI adoption—you will have the resources to push the boundaries of what's possible.

From many places, we work as one, moving from better to best together.

SD Worx lives diversity in the workplace. Diversity provides inspiration and innovation in our company. We particularly welcome applications from qualified talent, regardless of origin, nationality, gender, skin colour, ethnic and social background, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation and stage of life.