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# Head of Software Engineering

- **Company:** Itecopeople
- **Location:** London, UK
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** £156,000.0 - £176,800.0
- **Contract:** Temporary contract
- **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft Azure, Software Quality, Continuous Integration, DevOps, Software Engineering, Event Driven Architecture, Infrastructure Automation Frameworks
- **Published:** September 26, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.itecopeople.co.uk/vacancies/head-of-software-engineering-26-00082/

## About the Role

* Proven experience leading multidisciplinary engineering functions within large, complex organisations.
 * A strong track record of setting engineering standards and embedding them successfully across teams.
 * Deep understanding of modern engineering practices, cloud-native architecture and DevOps, ideally within Microsoft Azure environments.
 * The technical credibility to challenge decisions constructively and guide managers, architects and senior engineers.
 * Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical audiences.
 * A collaborative, pragmatic leadership style and the ability to make an impact quickly.

Experience in AI is a significant advantage, particularly applying AI to engineering workflows, automation or the delivery of AI-enabled services.

Experience within regulated or operationally critical environments-such as public sector, education, healthcare or financial services-would also be key.

This is an opportunity to shape a growing engineering function and establish standards that support a substantial technology transformation.

## Description

* Define engineering standards, governance and ways of working across the function.
 * Establish best practice across software development, testing, code quality, DevOps, CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code.
 * Guide architecture and platform decisions, ensuring services are scalable, resilient, secure and maintainable.
 * Lead engineering managers and senior engineers across multiple teams, building collaboration and accountability.
 * Assess engineering maturity, identify priority improvements and drive practical changes during the assignment.
 * Support cloud-native transformation across Microsoft Azure, event-driven architecture, platform engineering and automation.
 * Work with senior stakeholders to balance delivery priorities, engineering quality, technical health and cost.


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