Head of Engineering (Convo AI)

Description

The company is a large UK group in financial services, building Conversational AI services that change how customers interact with it.

This role leads the engineering team behind that work.

The deadline for applications is Friday 13 November 2026.

Responsibilities

• Lead a multidisciplinary engineering team that builds and scales Conversational AI experiences for customers.
• Own engineering delivery, people leadership, operational excellence and technology execution across customer servicing, intelligent search, AI-powered guidance, agentic experiences and future AI capabilities.
• Work with Product, Design, Data, Architecture and Platform teams to deliver scalable GenAI, Agentic AI, orchestration, search and fulfilment solutions that meet high standards for security, resilience, compliance and customer trust.
• Build a team with clear ownership and a habit of continuous improvement, setting quality standards and performance expectations.
• Drive engineering excellence across software, AI engineering, testing, observability, reliability and operations.
• Lead delivery of Conversational AI products, AI-powered servicing journeys, intelligent assistants and agentic customer experiences.
• Promote reuse of common engineering assets, patterns and platform capabilities across customer journeys and business areas.
• Help shape delivery and investment decisions with Product Owners, Architects and business leaders, weighing customer outcomes, strategy, risk, technical debt and long-term sustainability.
• Make AI solutions secure, resilient, scalable, reusable and production-ready, building in monitoring, evaluation, experimentation and operational controls.
• Lead workforce planning, organisational design, succession planning, recruitment and capability development.

Requirements

• A proven record of building, organising and leading high-performing multidisciplinary engineering teams in large-scale digital, technology or platform settings.
• Hands-on experience delivering customer-facing Conversational AI, GenAI, Agentic AI or intelligent assistant capabilities, with solid knowledge of modern software engineering, cloud-native architecture, APIs, DevOps, Agile delivery and platform engineering.
• Ability to manage delivery roadmaps, workforce plans, budgets, technology risk, operational performance, resilience and technology strategy.
• Experience in regulated environments, with strong governance and risk controls covering reliability, security, safety and explainability.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, including work with senior business, product and technology leaders.
• A track record of coaching technical colleagues at every level, developing engineering talent and balancing delivery with learning, experimentation and adoption of emerging technology.
• Skills built in other ways or transferable experience are welcome, even where a specific number of years is mentioned in the role.

Conditions

Salary is £126,523 to £148,850.

Full-time hours.

Hybrid working: at least two days per week, or 40% of your time, at one of the office sites.

Flexible working options include job share.

Disabled applicants, including those with long-term health or neurodivergent conditions, who meet the minimum criteria are guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme, and reasonable adjustments, including flexibility on office attendance, location and working patterns, are available throughout recruitment.

Sensitive information and background checks are requested only after an interview invitation or an accepted verbal offer, and you will be told what is needed and why.

Benefits

• Pension contribution of up to 15%.
• Annual performance-related bonus.
• Share schemes, including free shares.
• Adaptable benefits, such as discounted shopping.
• 30 days' holiday, plus bank holidays.
• Wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies.
• A menopause health package and a Working with Cancer initiative.
• Opportunities to learn, grow and develop across a large group.