Director of Engineering Excellence & Governance

Director of Engineering Excellence & Governance

Location: London Hybrid

Type: Permanent

A senior technology leader to define, embed and govern engineering standards across a large, complex, highly regulated enterprise technology environment.

This is not a pure enterprise architecture, delivery management, audit, risk advisory or policy-only role. We are looking for a senior engineering and architecture leader who can set practical standards, drive adoption across distributed engineering teams, and ensure technology is built in a secure, scalable, resilient and controlled way.

The role will suit someone who understands how modern engineering standards apply across cloud platforms, APIs, microservices, distributed systems, integration, secure development, CI/CD, observability, testing, resilience, operational readiness and architecture governance.

You will own the enterprise-wide engineering standards agenda, working closely with senior leaders across Engineering, Architecture, Security, Risk, Data, Operations, Product and Technology Delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the enterprise engineering standards framework across software development, architecture, cloud, integration, security, resilience and engineering governance.
• Establish practical engineering guardrails that enable teams to deliver scalable, secure, compliant and maintainable technology.
• Set standards for modern engineering practices including APIs, microservices, distributed systems, observability, CI/CD, automated testing, release quality and operational readiness.
• Shape and evolve standards for cloud engineering, infrastructure patterns, deployment practices and platform consistency across multiple teams and domains.
• Partner with Engineering, Architecture, Security, Risk, Operations and Product leadership to align standards with business priorities, regulatory expectations and enterprise technology strategy.
• Drive adoption of engineering standards across diverse teams, ensuring consistency without creating unnecessary bureaucracy or slowing delivery.
• Build governance mechanisms that provide visibility of adherence, exceptions, risks, technical debt and areas requiring remediation.
• Use metrics, reporting and engineering insight to identify gaps in quality, resilience, consistency, security and control across the technology estate.
• Review emerging technologies, regulatory developments and evolving engineering practices to keep standards relevant and forward-looking.
• Promote a culture of engineering quality, accountability, technical excellence and continuous improvement across the wider technology organisation.

Experience Required

• Strong experience in senior engineering leadership, enterprise architecture, architecture governance, platform strategy or enterprise-wide engineering standards.
• Proven track record of defining and operationalising engineering standards across a large, complex organisation.
• Strong understanding of modern engineering and architecture practices including cloud platforms, APIs, microservices, distributed systems, automation and secure-by-design delivery.
• Experience translating architecture principles into practical standards, reusable patterns and delivery guardrails.
• Strong governance experience, with the judgement to balance control, flexibility, speed and long-term sustainability.
• Credibility working across Engineering, Architecture, Security, Risk, Operations and senior business stakeholders.
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders in environments where technology quality, resilience and control are business-critical.
• Strong understanding of operational resilience, security, auditability, risk management and technology controls within regulated environments.
• Data-led approach to engineering quality and governance, with the ability to use metrics and evidence to drive improvement and accountability.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence, build trust with senior stakeholders and raise standards across distributed engineering teams.

Preferred Background

• Financial services, insurance, payments, banking, asset management, wealth, pensions or another highly regulated sector.
• Cloud-native engineering, enterprise integration, platform transformation or large-scale engineering modernisation.
• Experience across global or distributed engineering teams.
• Exposure to CI/CD, observability, developer platforms, engineering assurance, SRE, platform engineering or reliability engineering.
• Experience helping organisations reduce engineering fragmentation, improve reuse and strengthen consistency across a broad technology estate.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The strongest candidate will be a senior technology leader who has operated above individual delivery teams and has influenced how engineering is done across an enterprise.

They should be credible with senior engineers and architects, but also comfortable engaging with executive stakeholders, risk, security, operations and business leaders.

This person needs to be pragmatic. The role is about creating standards that teams actually adopt, not producing theoretical frameworks that sit on a shelf.