Senior Director, Software Engineering and Technology
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
Cotality is seeking a strategic and visionary Senior Director Software Engineering and Technology to lead, scale, and elevate our engineering capabilities across our UK Business Lines. This is a highly visible leadership role where you will serve as a critical bridge between regional business objectives and global technology strategy, holding a seat on both the UK Leadership Team and the Global Engineering Leadership Team .
You will have the autonomy to drive meaningful change, spearheading legacy modernisation, operational excellence, and the integration of advanced AI solutions into our product portfolio. If you are a collaborative engineering leader who thrives at the intersection of business strategy and technical execution, and you are ready to make a significant impact across the UK and globally, we want to hear from you., * Dual-Leadership Alignment: Act as a core member of the UK Leadership Team to drive regional commercial goals, while partnering with the Global Engineering Leadership Team to shape and execute Cotality's broader enterprise technology vision.
- Engineering Roadmap: Define, own, and deliver a comprehensive engineering strategy across infrastructure, software development, data, and AI for the UK region.
- Executive Stakeholder Management: Serve as the primary technical liaison to regional executives, global leadership, and key external clients. Act as both a strategic visionary and a pragmatic "doer" who can seamlessly translate technology impact into clear commercial value.
Engineering Excellence & AI Transformation
- AI-Native Evolution: Champion the transition to an "AI-native" software development lifecycle, strategically infusing Generative AI and Machine Learning across the UK product portfolio to drive measurable ROI and business value.
- Legacy Modernization: Oversee the architectural evolution of legacy systems, transforming them into scalable, secure, and high-performing cloud-native applications.
- Product Partnership: Collaborate deeply with Product Management to synchronize technical roadmaps with business objectives, ensuring the rapid and reliable delivery of high-quality features.
Operational Rigor & Governance
- Mission-Critical Reliability: Lead day-to-day engineering operations, ensuring 24/7 "lights-on" reliability for critical platforms, minimizing technical debt, and optimizing overall system performance.
- Infrastructure & Security: Champion regional IT infrastructure strategy-encompassing cloud, networking, disaster recovery, and data security policies-ensuring strict compliance and alignment with global standards.
- Financial & Vendor Management: Manage regional engineering budgets, optimize departmental spending, and govern strategic vendor relationships to ensure quality, cost-efficiency, and operational agility.
Culture & Talent Development
- Build High-Performing Teams: Recruit, inspire, and mentor a world-class UK engineering organization. Implement highly effective organisational designs to maximize business engagement.
- Foster Innovation: Cultivate a culture of accountability, continuous learning, humility, and innovation within a highly matrixed, global environment. Drive succession planning for key leadership roles within your organization.
Requirements
- Executive Leadership: 10+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience, with a proven track record of managing large, multi-disciplinary engineering teams in a matrixed, global environment.
- Executive Influence: Demonstrated experience on regional or global leadership teams, with the ability to influence C-suite stakeholders and align technical roadmaps with commercial business strategies.
- Team Development: A history of building, mentoring, and leading high-performing, collaborative teams.
- Technical Depth: Deep expertise in cloud-native architecture, legacy system modernization, and the operation of large-scale platforms.
- AI & Emerging Technology: Practical experience in the evaluation and deployment of emerging technologies, with a specific focus on integrating AI/ML into established products and workflows.
- Architectural Experience: Over 10 years of hands-on experience in software architecture and development.
- Strategic Vision: The ability to develop and translate business strategy into a clear technical vision and successfully execute on that vision.
- Operational & Financial Mindset: Strong financial acumen, including experience managing multi-million-pound departmental budgets and navigating complex vendor negotiations.
- Influential Negotiation: Strong negotiation skills with the ability to influence strategic decisions that require coordination across various functional lines.
- Education & Experience: A Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience is required.
- Project Management: Expertise in project management, with a solid understanding of managing milestones, deliverables, and resource scheduling for multiple, highly visible, long-term, and complex projects.
Benefits & conditions
At Cotality, we offer more than just a job - we deliver a benefits experience crafted to support your whole self. From flexible working arrangements to generous leave and standout private healthcare, our perks are designed to help you flourish both at work and beyond. Here's a snapshot of what's on offer:
- Time Away: Generous paid leave, 8 bank holidays, plus dedicated days for wellbeing and volunteering.
- Family Support: Up to 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave, along with a baby bonus to help you get started.
- Health & Wellbeing: Company-paid private medical cover, with mental health and wellness resources included.
- Retirement: Pension scheme with employer contributions.
- Financial Perks: £375 annual wellbeing allowance.
- Extras: Recognition rewards, referral bonuses, exclusive discounts, and more!
Cotality's Diversity Commitment:
Cotality is fully committed to employing a diverse workforce and creating an inclusive work environment that embraces everyone's unique contributions, experiences and values. We offer an empowered work environment that encourages creativity, initiative and professional growth and provides a competitive salary and benefits package. We are better together when we support and recognize our differences.