Head of Platform Engineering

Description

The company is in a major growth phase and builds the automation platform that lets cell therapies be manufactured reliably and at scale.

This senior role carries authority over critical decisions and a real chance to shape the organisation. The company has set up an Engineering Department to hold capability, standards and careers, and cross-department programmes apply that capability to product and customer work.

You will own platform engineering, reporting directly to the COO and working as a peer to the heads of Product and Application Development, Operations and Customer Delivery. The team develops the core technology platform and is led through the heads of Software, Hardware, Robotics and Integration.

Responsibilities

• Turn company and product strategy into a platform engineering strategy, a prioritised roadmap, and sound decisions on investment, capacity and resources.
• Lead and grow the leaders of software, hardware, electronics and firmware, robotics and systems integration: set expectations, hold people accountable, give direct feedback, and build succession plans.
• Drive delivery by making priorities visible, asking for realistic plans, using meaningful measures, raising risk early, clearing blockers and stepping in quickly where work drifts.
• Set and keep improving engineering standards for architecture, design review, integration, verification and validation, configuration and change control, reliability, maintainability and lifecycle support.
• Oversee the coherence of the core platform and the quality of major technical choices, weighing urgent customer needs against reuse, modularity, technical debt, product integrity and long-term scale.
• Work with product leadership to turn priorities into executable platform plans, with customer delivery on commitments, sequencing and resource trade-offs, and with operations on design for manufacture, supply, installation, service and support.
• Lead important technical discussions with customers, partners and suppliers.
• Build future capability with others: talent plans, skills strategy, professional development, knowledge sharing and succession, so the department is ready for the next stage.

Requirements

• Proven experience leading a large multidisciplinary engineering department through senior managers or discipline leads, with evidence of better delivery and performance through coaching, high standards, direct handling of performance, strong hiring, and skills and succession building.
• Hands-on experience taking integrated automation, robotics, electromechanical or other complex capital equipment from concept through integration, deployment and support.
• Enough technical breadth across software, embedded systems, electronics, hardware, controls, robotics and integration to challenge experts and settle cross-discipline decisions.
• Experience balancing architecture, modularity, reuse, technical debt and lifecycle needs against the pressures of products, applications and customer programmes.
• Practical grounding in quality, safety, design assurance, verification and validation, configuration and change, reliability and continuous improvement.
• Ability to weigh scope, cost, resources, timescales and technical risk, and to speak for engineering credibly with customers, partners and suppliers.
• Ability to bring technical and non-technical groups into line, explain complex choices in plain terms, and earn the confidence of senior stakeholders.
• Experience in a regulated, safety-critical or high-reliability environment would be valuable. Life sciences or GMP experience is helpful but not essential.
• You listen widely before deciding. You are direct, fair, calm under pressure and low ego. You stay close enough to delivery to see what is really happening and clear blockers, while building leaders and systems that do not depend on you for every answer. You are proactive, curious and persistent about follow-through.

Conditions

Based at Melbourn Science Park, about 10 miles south of Cambridge.

Renovated premises with office, laboratory and engineering space, set among green spaces.

Benefits

• Annual bonus
• 25 days holiday
• Employer pension contribution of 10% of salary
• Private medical insurance for employees and dependants
• Subsidised lunches
• Enhanced family-friendly leave
• Life insurance worth 6x salary
• Electric car leasing scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Season ticket loan