DDCC Head of Engineering

Description

The company is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents, including over 7,500 in the UK. It works across defence, space, aerospace and digital security.

The DDCC is the UK Digital and Data Competence Centre and has three areas: cortAIx UK and Enterprise AI, which incubates and industrialises deployed and enterprise AI; Data Enablement, which builds foundational data tools, processes and architectures; and Sovereign Cloud, which delivers cloud native platforms for UK development and production.

The global cortAIx initiative brings together over 600 AI and data specialists building trusted, operationally effective AI systems for complex environments. In the UK it focuses on ethical, transparent and explainable AI.

This role manages technical engineering work, mainly supporting cortAIx UK. You will oversee the development process, practices and tooling strategy across DDCC engineering, and manage and monitor solution engineering and its teams.

You will lead a small, technically complex team to drive development. The work is hands-on and involves Software, Systems, IVVQ, AI and Machine Learning teams.

You are a solution provider and force multiplier. You bring delivery management strength for technical solutions, can manage a small group of functional leads, and understand software architecture in safety critical environments.

Career paths include moving into other domains, sites or countries within the group, and choosing either a technical or a leadership route. Internal candidates are considered first.

Responsibilities

• Act as the first point of contact for customer technical requirements and escalations from scrum teams.
• Enforce technical direction and resolve conflicts between teams.
• Own hiring strategy, career ladders, mentoring, and cross-discipline performance processes and escalations.
• Improve engineering effectiveness, for example test maturity, CI reliability and coding standards.
• Turn leadership messages into clear communication, and explain how decisions affect the roadmap and trade-offs.
• Coordinate platform, software, test and automation, and support needs across teams.
• Oversee verification strategy, traceability and defect management, and coordinate and deliver with the Project Design Authority on quality, safety and cyber assurance.
• Run CI/CD for embedded systems, static analysis, unit and integration test frameworks, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing and configuration management.
• Review and manage project technical risks together with AIDM.
• Develop and run the engineering strategy for AI products and platforms.
• Own technology roadmaps tied to business objectives.
• Work with executive leadership to identify and rank AI opportunities.
• Build a culture of innovation, experimentation, accountability and continuous improvement.
• Advise on emerging AI technologies, trends and risks.
• Lead, coach and grow Engineering Managers, Principal Engineers, AI Engineers and Software Engineers.
• Build and scale high-performing, diverse engineering teams.
• Set engineering standards, architecture principles and delivery practices.
• Drive operational excellence in reliability, security, performance and scalability.
• Build an engineering culture focused on quality and customer outcomes.
• Define and track engineering metrics, including reliability, deployment frequency, lead time, platform utilisation and cost efficiency.
• Automate across the software and AI lifecycle.
• Within the first 12-24 months, you will be measured on delivering measurable business value from AI initiatives, improving engineering productivity and deployment frequency, keeping employee engagement and retention high, and putting AI and engineering governance frameworks in place.

Requirements

• Likely hold an academic qualification in engineering or computer science.
• Have worked in roles such as Engineering Manager, Technical Project Manager, Software Engineering Manager, Technical Design Authority, or senior systems or solution architect in a relevant discipline.
• Have worked on complex programmes in highly regulated environments.
• Know how to verify engineering teams' technical deliverables, such as customer needs, OCD, requirements and architecture choices.
• Can lead and manage technical engineering projects against requirements, with a clear view of risks and opportunities.
• Have significant experience producing high quality technical documentation aligned to set processes and frameworks.
• Can engage and influence diverse stakeholders and set clear, achievable goals.
• Can make decisions, including in uncertain situations.
• Can drive a culture of continuous improvement.
• Optional, of additional value: defence or aerospace experience.
• Advantageous: experience delivering operational AI solutions into embedded environments, or evidence you can quickly learn the tools and processes needed to set up and run an MLOps and AI delivery organisation in a complex environment.

Conditions

Hybrid working based in Crawley.

Relocation support can be provided if required.

You must hold British nationality, although dual nationality can be considered.

Because of the nature of the work, you must be able to hold UK EYES ONLY security clearance.

Holding SC clearance already would be advantageous. If you do not, you must obtain and keep SC clearance before starting. To be eligible for full SC you generally need to have lived in the UK for the last 5 years, although a minimum of 3 years in the last 5 may be accepted with additional overseas checks.

The company ensures equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all.

Benefits

• A significant bonus, with development focused targets.
• A strong pension contribution.
• Private medical insurance and healthcare.
• Options to buy or sell annual leave, a cycle to work scheme, employee discounts, a paid volunteering day, and a stocks and shares scheme.
• Training, development, mentoring and coaching, with support towards academic and membership qualifications.
• Other benefits vary by role.