Head of Engineering

JOB TITLE: Head of Engineering

SALARY: £124,653 - £150,000

LOCATION: Leeds or Edinburgh

HOURS: Full time

WORKING PATTERN: Hybrid, 40% (or two days) in our Leeds or Edinburgh office.

About this opportunity…

A great opportunity has arisen to be part of a team within the P&A platform as a Head of Engineering. You will oversee all aspects of the engineering lifecycle, from technology design and architecture through to implementation and optimisation. You’ll work closely with cloud architects, data scientists, and risk officers to deliver a robust, scalable, and compliant platform that meets the bank’s risk and regulatory needs. The role will shape the Lab vision, set strategic direction, and demonstrate technical leadership across the lifecycle from idea to value realisation.

About us…

Like the modern Britain we serve, we’re evolving. Investing billions in our people, data and tech to transform how we meet the changing needs of our 26 million customers. We’re growing with purpose. Join us on our journey and you will too…

What you’ll do…

• Lead the engineering team responsible for end-to-end infrastructure and technology transformation, including legacy decommissioning and GCP-based data infrastructure.

• Provide technical direction and mentorship, fostering collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.

• Design scalable, high-performance cloud infrastructure on GCP, ensuring availability, resilience, security, and compliance.

• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) using tools like Terraform or Google Cloud Deployment Manager.

• Oversee engineering project delivery from requirements to deployment and support, ensuring alignment with risk and analytics goals.

• Collaborate with DevOps, QA, and security teams to integrate CI/CD pipelines and automate testing.

• Partner with data scientists and analysts to build data pipelines and infrastructure for analytics, stress testing, and reporting.

• Ensure cost-effective data ingestion, processing, and storage, and build model-ready data products.

• Integrate tools for data governance, lineage, and security to meet compliance standards.

• Ensure infrastructure complies with regulations (e.g., GDPR, Basel III/IV, IFRS 9) and embed DevSecOps principles.

• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate business needs into technical solutions aligned with cloud strategy.

• Communicate progress and risks to senior leadership.

• Stay current on GCP services and data infrastructure trends to drive continuous improvement and innovation.

What you’ll need…

• Extensive experience leading engineering teams in cloud-based data platforms, preferably with GCP expertise.

• Deep knowledge of cloud architecture, data engineering, pipelines, and big data technologies (e.g., BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub).

• Proficiency in Python, Java, or Scala; familiarity with microservices, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI), and cloud monitoring.

• Proven experience in digital transformation and Agile environments.

• Preferred understanding of banking risk management and regulatory frameworks (e.g., Basel III/IV, IFRS 9, CRD4).

• Strong leadership and stakeholder engagement skills.

• 15+ years in software development and cloud engineering, ideally in financial services.

• Experience with big data frameworks (e.g., Apache Beam, Spark) and data governance tools.

About working for us…

Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion supporting our customers, colleagues and communities and we’re committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop. We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer Initiative. We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns. And, as a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role with a disability, long-term health or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme. We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process to reduce or remove barriers. Just let us know what you need.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes…

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%

• An annual bonus award, subject to Group performance

• Share schemes including free shares

• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping

• 30 days’ holiday, with bank holidays on top

• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies

If you’re excited by the thought of becoming part of our team, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!