Head of Engineering

London Senior Leadership Opportunity We're looking for an exceptional Head of Engineering to lead the next stage of technology transformation for a major financial services organisation. This is a senior leadership opportunity for an experienced engineering professional who can shape, develop and scale a modern engineering function, overseeing the delivery of secure, resilient and highly scalable technology platforms. You'll play a key role in modernising existing technology, introducing new engineering practices and helping the organisation move towards a more cloud-native, automated and AI-enabled operating model. The Role Reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer, you'll be responsible for setting the engineering strategy and leading a blended workforce of internal engineers, external partners and offshore development teams. You'll work closely with Architecture, Product, Platform, Data and Delivery leadership to ensure technology strategy translates into effective engineering execution. Key responsibilities will include: - Leading and developing a high-performing software engineering organisation. - Defining and implementing engineering strategy, standards, frameworks and best practices. - Driving the modernisation of legacy platforms towards cloud-native, modular and event-driven architectures. - Improving engineering capability through DevOps, CI/CD, automation, observability and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). - Overseeing the development of scalable, secure and resilient systems supporting mission-critical payments and FX platforms. - Introducing AI-enabled engineering tools, intelligent automation and next-generation development workflows. - Managing internal engineering teams alongside external technology partners and offshore resources. - Working closely with senior technology stakeholders to drive transformation, improve delivery and reduce technical complexity. - Ensuring engineering practices meet the required standards for security, resilience, quality and regulatory compliance. About You You'll be an experienced engineering leader with a strong technical background and a proven track record of building and transforming engineering organisations. You'll ideally bring: - Significant experience as a Head of Engineering, Engineering Director, VP of Engineering or equivalent. - A strong software engineering background, with hands-on technical expertise in modern programming languages, distributed systems and API engineering. - Experience building and scaling cloud-native, distributed and event-driven platforms. - A track record of modernising legacy technology environments and leading large-scale transformation programmes. - Strong knowledge of DevOps, CI/CD, automation, SRE and platform engineering. - Experience leading internal engineering teams and managing external technology partners. - The ability to influence and communicate effectively with CTOs and other senior stakeholders. - Experience working within regulated environments, ideally financial services. Experience in payments, FX, banking or high-volume transaction processing would be particularly advantageous. An interest or experience in generative AI, agentic AI and AI-enabled software engineering workflows would also be highly beneficial. The Opportunity This is an opportunity to take ownership of a critical engineering function, influence technology strategy at the highest level and play a leading role in a significant multi-year transformation. If you're an ambitious engineering leader who enjoys building high-performing teams, driving technological change and delivering complex platforms at scale, we'd be keen to hear from you.