Director of Engineering (Hands-On)

Director of Engineering (Hands-On)

• Remote-first (Quarterly meet-ups in London or more)
• Salary Range: £120,000 – £145,000 + benefits

We’re partnered with a profitable, product-led technology company operating in the global workforce / vendor management space. Founded over a decade ago, the business has less than 100 employees and is experiencing 50% year-on-year growth, disrupting a $200bn+ global market

The company is led by an experienced CEO who has previously scaled a well-known consumer tech business, and the platform is trusted by household-name brands across fintech, media, e-commerce and delivery.

They’re now hiring a hands-on Director of Engineering to lead the next phase of technical growth.

The Role: This is a builder-leader role, not a pure people-management position.

You’ll take ownership of engineering execution, architecture and technical direction while remaining meaningfully hands-on

Key responsibilities:

• Lead 12 Senior Engineers across 3 teams
• Remain up to 40% hands-on, with a strong backend focus
• Own architecture and infrastructure decisions for a core platform
• Set technical standards and delivery practices
• Work closely with Product and Senior Leadership on high-impact initiatives
• Build and launch a 4th engineering team later in the year

Tech stack: Python, Django, TypeScript, React, GraphQL, Heroku (Backend-leaning, full-stack awareness expected)Who They’re Looking For

This role suits a strong technical DOER with leadership capability. You don’t need to have held a Director title before. If you’ve led 4+ engineers and owned systems end-to-end, that’s enough.

You might currently be:

• A Lead Engineer / Engineering Lead, stepping into further leadership
• An Engineering Manager or Head of Engineering who is still deeply technical in the Python stack
• A Director of Engineering in a startup or scale-up, running a <20 person Engineering org, who prefers to stay close to the code

You’ll bring:

• Deep backend experience (Python/Django strongly preferred, but other frameworks are fine)
• Confidence making architectural and infrastructure decisions
• Product and commercial awareness
• Startup or scale-up experience is critical
• A pragmatic, ownership-driven mindset

What’s on Offer

• £120,000 - £145,000 base salary (dependent on experience)
• Competitive benefits package
• Remote-first culture, with quarterly in-person meet-ups in London
• High autonomy, real technical ownership, and a senior, capable engineering team
• Clear progression to CTO