Head of Software

Head of Software Engineering - Hybrid - South East

Location: Bracknell (3 days per week in office) Salary: £90,000 – £100,000 + bonus

Tech: PHP/Laravel, React/NextJS, AWS microservices, and a modern CI/CD pipeline managed through GitHub and Jira.

This is an opportunity to join a fast-growing business at a genuinely exciting point in its evolution and lead their Software Engineering function. With close to half a million customers, a national retail footprint and a digital business that accounts for more than 70% of sales, the company is scaling at pace. With other business areas and ideas in the pipeline this is a great time to be joining them.

The team is a focused team of circa 10-12 developers and needs someone to bring a little more structure and purpose to them on a day to day basis whilst also being able to advise and work alongside them technically. Working directly alongside an experienced CTO, you’ll help shape an engineering culture built on high standards, pragmatic delivery, and continuous improvement. This is a place where developers are trusted, quality is taken seriously, and the right person will have the platform to build something genuinely high-performing.

This is a genuine 50:50 hands-on/leadership position — you’ll be coding and reviewing alongside a team, not just directing from a distance. You’ll own the architecture, set development standards, and be accountable for how the team performs and grows. Regular 1-2-1s, capability development, and building a hiring bar that raises the whole team are central to this role, not afterthoughts. The tech stack centres on PHP/Laravel, React/NextJS, AWS microservices, and a modern CI/CD pipeline managed through GitHub and Jira.

We’re looking for someone who has already led engineering teams and can demonstrate it — someone with a track record of building high-performing teams, owning technical architecture, and setting the development practices others follow. This is not a step-up role for a senior developer moving into leadership for the first time; we want proven leadership experience paired with hands-on technical credibility. Experience in e-commerce or high-traffic web platforms is a strong advantage, as is familiarity with security compliance in regulated environments (FCA, GDPR, PCI DSS).

If you’re an experienced engineering leader who still loves to build, thrives in a fast-moving environment, and wants the room to make a genuine difference, we’d love to hear from you. The role is based in Bracknell with three days per week in the office and offers a salary of £90,000–£100,000 plus bonus.