Head of Engineering

Head of Engineering

Location: Ipswich (3 days onsite)
Salary: £100,000 - £130,000 + benefits

We are seeking a commercially minded, technology-driven Head of Engineering to lead and evolve our clients engineering function. This is a pivotal leadership role responsible for building and scaling their digital capability across bespoke software and ecommerce platforms.

You will lead a team of 10-15 engineers and low-code developers, owning the digital budget and setting the technical direction. Working closely with the Head of Service and Infrastructure, you will ensure applications are delivered and operated effectively through strong DevOps principles.

This role has significant scope: leading the full end-to-end ecommerce and digital engineering stack, with the opportunity to evolve the structure over time.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead software engineering and low-code development across digital products and internal platforms

• Build, maintain and scale bespoke software solutions and ecommerce systems end-to-end

• Define and execute digital and engineering strategy aligned to business objectives

• Own and manage the digital team budget, ensuring strong commercial governance

• Partner with Service and Infrastructure leadership to embed DevOps practices and operational excellence

• Establish strong Agile product and delivery practices across the function

• Drive technology transformation and embed change operationally across the organisation

• Make pragmatic, scalable technology decisions

• Champion continuous improvement and innovation across the engineering function

Experience & Background

• Proven experience standing up, reshaping or transforming a digital/engineering function

• Strong background within ecommerce environments (B2C or B2B)

• Solid hands-on software engineering foundation (prior development experience essential)

• Experience with Microsoft Azure and cloud-native architectures

• Demonstrable ownership of engineering budgets and supplier relationships

• Strong understanding of DevOps principles and running applications in production environments

Leadership & Mindset

• Strong Agile product and delivery mindset

• Commercially aware understands cost drivers, ROI, supplier management and build vs buy trade-offs

• Innovation-aware - actively drives improvement rather than maintaining the status quo

• Focused on stable, maintainable engineering choices that scale effectively

• Comfortable operating strategically while remaining technically credible

• Able to build high-performing teams and develop future leaders within the function