Head of Platform

Location: Deansgate, Manchester (hybrid, 1 day a week in the office)

We’ve partnered with an established, fast-growing data and SaaS business that is seeking a Head of Platform to lead its software engineering function through a period of significant growth. As demand for its connected technology accelerates, so do its data volumes and platform needs. Reporting to the CTO, you’ll own everything software related: infrastructure, DevOps, backend services and APIs, the web platform and the mobile apps. It’s a friendly, fast-moving business where decisions are made quickly, and the platform you lead sits at the heart of what customers buy.

Responsibilities

• Lead the platform engineering function, managing the front-end, back-end and mobile leads, plus a wider team of 6-7 engineers across the UK and US
• Shape and own the platform roadmap with the CTO and business unit owners, balancing day-to-day delivery against strategic priorities
• Lead the platform through rapid growth, making sure infrastructure, data handling and services stay resilient, performant and ready to scale
• Own the security of the platform environment, including pen-testing partners, and support upcoming ISO and SOC 2 certification
• Define how the team adopts AI tooling to improve productivity while protecting quality and uptime
• Drive engineering standards, documentation and operational best practice across the teams
• Coach and develop engineers, building a culture of ownership and accountability
• Help build out a dedicated DevOps function from next year
• Represent the platform across the business, working with founders, sales, innovation and department heads
• Manage key technology vendor relationships and contracts

Skills & Experience

• Proven experience leading multiple engineering teams that deliver an interrelated digital product and roadmap
• Experience managing a cloud platform, with AWS strongly preferred (Azure or GCP considered)
• Broad understanding of how modern platforms fit together: containers, serverless, APIs, CI/CD and observability
• Exposure to AWS, MongoDB, React/TypeScript, Terraform, GitHub Actions and Grafana
• Strong stakeholder management skills, and the ability to turn business needs into engineering priorities
• A pragmatic, commercial mindset that values shipping and iterating over chasing perfection
• A considered, informed view on AI and its role in engineering teams
• Startup or scale-up experience, or a genuine appetite for ownership and wearing many hats

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