Interim Head of Engineering (3–6 months)

CostPerform; Utrecht; Hybrid; EUR 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working environment

Direct collaboration with CTO

Competitive interim rate

Job summary

CostPerform seeks an experienced Interim Head of Engineering to lead our engineering organisation for an initial 3–6 month assignment, with scope to influence day-to-day execution and a bridge to a permanent leader. You will work closely with the CTO, drive AI-powered workflows, and push our Java-based platform toward a modern, browser-native architecture.

You will coach teams, establish priorities, improve delivery velocity, and balance short-term delivery with long-term technical ambitions in

Qualifications

• Significant experience leading engineering teams and delivering results.
• Proven Interim Head of Engineering or similar leadership role.
• Strong Java and modern software architecture foundations.
• Experience with Angular and modern frontend frameworks.
• Background in product-driven SaaS environments and scale-ups.
• Track record of improving engineering processes and delivery.

Responsibilities

• Take day-to-day leadership of the engineering team with structure and clarity.
• Coach developers and raise team performance and engagement.
• Translate technical roadmap into concrete priorities and deliveries.
• Provide architecture guidance and set engineering standards.
• Lead platform modernisation, cloud-native architecture and AWS projects.
• Drive AI-powered tooling adoption and productivity improvements.
• Align Engineering with Product and CTO strategy and ensure handover readiness.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Team management

Java

AI-powered development

SaaS product experience

English communication

Tools

Spring Boot

AWS

Angular (modern frontend)

Job description

The opportunity

At CostPerform, we're entering an exciting new phase of technological development. We're modernising our platform, investing in AI-driven engineering, and preparing our technology and engineering organisation for the next stage of international growth.

To lead this transformation, we're searching for a permanent Head of Engineering. But finding the right long-term leader takes time, and we don't want to lose momentum in the meantime. That's why we're also looking for an experienced Interim Head of Engineering to join us for an initial 3–6 month assignment.

We're looking for someone who can step in, quickly understand our technology and team, and start making an impact from day one.

You'll work closely with our CTO, Bert-Jan, acting as the bridge between technical strategy and day-to-day engineering execution. You'll take ownership of the engineering organisation, coach the team, improve ways of working, and help turn our ambitious technology roadmap into tangible progress.

This is not a purely advisory assignment. We're looking for someone who enjoys rolling up their sleeves, taking ownership, challenging existing ways of working, and getting things moving.

You'll have the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to a growing international SaaS company, while laying the foundations for our future permanent Head of Engineering.

What you’ll be doing

Engineering leadership & team management

• Take day-to-day leadership of the engineering team, providing structure, direction, and clarity.
• Coach and support developers, helping them grow individually and perform better as a team.
• Establish clear priorities, ownership, and accountability.
• Identify bottlenecks in team performance, collaboration, and delivery, and implement pragmatic improvements.
• Build trust quickly and create an environment where people feel supported, challenged, and motivated.

Technical leadership & execution

• Work closely with the CTO to translate the technical roadmap into concrete priorities and deliverables.
• Provide technical guidance on architecture, engineering standards, and technology decisions.
• Help accelerate our platform modernisation, including the evolution of our Java-based application towards a modern, browser-native platform.
• Support ongoing initiatives around backend modernisation, modularisation, and scalability on AWS.
• Improve engineering velocity, quality, and predictability without compromising the stability of our enterprise platform.
• Balance short-term delivery with long-term technical ambitions.

AI adoption & engineering innovation

• Actively drive the adoption of AI-powered development tools, agents, and workflows across the engineering team.
• Identify practical opportunities to improve developer productivity through AI.
• Challenge existing engineering practices and introduce improvements that deliver measurable value.
• Encourage experimentation, knowledge sharing, and a culture of continuous improvement.
• Help the team move beyond simply using AI tools towards integrating AI into their everyday engineering workflows.

Structure, processes & collaboration

• Assess our current engineering processes and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Strengthen planning, prioritisation, and delivery processes.
• Improve collaboration between Engineering, Product, and the wider business.
• Help create greater transparency around progress, dependencies, and technical challenges.
• Work alongside the CTO to ensure the engineering team is aligned with the company's strategic direction.

What we’d like you to achieve

We know that meaningful technology transformation takes longer than a few months. We're not expecting you to complete our entire roadmap during this assignment.

Instead, we'd like you to create momentum, introduce improvements, and leave the engineering organisation in a stronger position than you found it.

By the end of your assignment, we'd ideally like to see:

• An engineering team with clear priorities, ownership, and effective day-to-day leadership.
• More structure and predictability in engineering delivery.
• Tangible progress on our platform modernisation initiatives.
• Meaningful improvements in AI adoption and developer productivity.
• Stronger alignment between our CTO, engineering team, and business stakeholders.
• Clear documentation, recommendations, and a smooth handover to our future permanent Head of Engineering.

We're looking for an experienced engineering leader who has successfully stepped into complex technology environments and knows how to create impact quickly.

You ideally bring:

• Significant experience in software engineering, including several years leading engineering teams.
• Previous experience as an Interim Head of Engineering, Engineering Manager, VP Engineering, or similar leadership role.
• Strong technical foundations in Java and modern software architecture.
• Experience with modern frontend frameworks such as Angular.
• Experience in product-driven SaaS environments, ideally within growing or transforming organisations.
• A proven track record of improving engineering processes, team performance, and delivery.
• Practical experience implementing AI-powered development practices within engineering teams.
• Experience with platform modernisation, cloud architecture, or technical transformation.
• Familiarity with technologies such as Spring Boot, AWS, and modern cloud-native architectures is a strong advantage.

More importantly, you are someone who:

• Can hit the ground running and quickly establish credibility with an existing engineering team.
• Combines strong technical understanding with excellent people leadership.
• Is pragmatic, decisive, and comfortable making trade-offs.
• Enjoys coaching engineers and helping teams perform at their best.
• Is genuinely enthusiastic about AI and its impact on software engineering.
• Is comfortable challenging both engineers and senior stakeholders when needed.
• Knows how to balance immediate improvements with longer-term strategic objectives.
• Can work independently while maintaining close alignment with the CTO.
• Communicates confidently in English; Dutch is a plus but not required.

We're not necessarily looking for someone who ticks every technical box. Your ability to lead people, create structure, drive execution, and accelerate change is what matters most.

What we offer

• A meaningful interim leadership assignment of approximately 3–6 months.
• Real ownership and responsibility for our engineering organisation.
• The opportunity to contribute to a major technology transformation.
• Direct collaboration with our CTO and senior leadership team.
• The freedom to challenge existing practices and implement meaningful improvements.
• A talented engineering team and a stable international SaaS product with ambitious growth plans.
• A hybrid working environment, with regular collaboration at our Utrecht office.
• A competitive freelance/interim rate, depending on experience and availability.

About CostPerform

CostPerform is a fast-growing international fintech and B2B SaaS company, trusted by 200+ organisations worldwide to solve complex cost and performance challenges.

Our software supports large, often complex organisations in gaining deep insight into costs, profitability, and financial performance — enabling better decision-making at CFO and enterprise level.

We work across industries including financial services (insurance and banking), telecom, government, and manufacturing, serving both the private and public sectors.

CostPerform operates in environments where standard ERP or BI tooling is not sufficient, and our platform is frequently implemented alongside major enterprise systems through close collaboration with partners and integrators.

Culture at CostPerform

CostPerform’s culture is deeply rooted in the dynamic spirit of a scale-up environment, fostering continuous growth, innovation, and adaptability. Our four core values guide how we work together and how we collaborate with customers and partners:

Growth: We encourage our team to embrace challenges as opportunities for personal and professional development, contributing to the organisation’s overall advancement.

Quality: We are committed to delivering high-quality products and services, reflected in our attention to detail and pursuit of excellence.

Trust: Trust forms the foundation of our culture, extending from team members to clients and partners, and enabling strong, long-lasting relationships.

Connection: We value meaningful connections within our team and beyond, recognising that a connected and engaged organisation is more innovative and resilient.