Director of Systems Engineering

Director of Systems Engineering (Enterprise)

We are seeking a senior technology leader to take ownership of a critical engineering function operating at scale across multiple teams, geographies, and stakeholders.

This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who thrives in complex environments — balancing strategy, delivery, and people leadership — while remaining technically credible at the highest level.

The Opportunity

You will lead a distributed organisation comprising 4–5 direct reports and 30+ indirect reports across multiple teams and time zones. This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and enterprise client engagement.

You will be responsible for setting direction, influencing senior stakeholders, and ensuring that engineering capability aligns with both internal strategy and external client needs.

This is not a purely managerial role — you will be expected to bring strong technical judgement, challenge assumptions, and provide clear direction in environments where ambiguity and complexity are the norm.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Leading and developing a multi-layered engineering organisation, fostering high performance and accountability
• Defining and executing technical strategy aligned to business and client objectives
• Acting as a senior escalation point for complex technical and organisational challenges
• Partnering with Product, Software Engineering, and other internal functions to deliver at pace and scale
• Engaging directly with enterprise clients, including C-level stakeholders (e.g. CTOs), building trust and influencing outcomes
• Driving operational excellence across systems, infrastructure, and delivery practices
• Creating clarity in complex situations and aligning teams behind a shared direction
• Building a culture of ownership, transparency, and continuous improvement

About You

• Proven senior leader with experience managing layered teams in complex, global environments
• Strong presence and credibility — able to influence, challenge, and lead in senior forums
• Commercially aware, with experience engaging enterprise clients and stakeholders
• Technically astute, with the ability to interrogate and validate solutions (particularly within cloud environments such as Azure)
• Comfortable operating across strategy and execution — from board-level discussions to operational problem-solving
• A natural leader who can command a room, build alignment, and drive outcomes
• Resilient, pragmatic, and decisive in the face of ambiguity

(The ideal candidate combines leadership strength with enough technical depth to ensure they are never reliant solely on others’ interpretation of complex systems.)

Why Join

• Opportunity to shape and lead a critical engineering function at scale
• High level of visibility and influence across both internal leadership and enterprise clients
• A role that blends strategy, leadership, and technical challenge

Package

• Salary circa £165,000
• Bonus + comprehensive benefits package