Head of Engineering

Head of Engineering

📍Location: UK, remote first

💰Package: Competitive package, dependent on experience, including a performance-related bonus

🕐 Hours: 37 hrs/week, with flexibility around how you organise your working day

📊 Reporting to: Group CTO

🚀 The Role

We’re looking for a Head of Engineering to lead Giant Group’s engineering organisation and help us make a significant step forward in how we build, deliver and support technology.

You’ll own our engineering teams, delivery, quality, testing, releases, technical standards and capability.

We’re looking for an experienced engineering leader who has led teams through meaningful change, improved how engineering organisations operate and knows how to make delivery more predictable without losing sight of quality.

You’ll need strong technical judgement, but your real job will be making the whole engineering organisation better: its people, practices, quality and execution.

👋 Who we are

Giant Group is a workforce management business on a mission to make work just work.

For over 30 years we’ve helped recruitment agencies, enterprise and SME businesses, and the contractors and workers at the heart of it all. From screening and payroll through to funding, compliance and global workforce solutions, everything we build comes down to one word:

Assurance.

We’re self-funded, independent, growing internationally and entering an exciting new phase of our journey.

Technology and Engineering are fundamental to what comes next.

🛠️ What you’ll own & build

Technology is fundamental to Giant’s next stage of growth. You’ll work closely with our Head of Product and Group CTO to drive a more digital, platform led business, using automation and AI intelligently.

Product owns the what and why; Engineering owns the how and delivery.

• Lead and develop a high performing engineering function.
• Make engineering delivery more predictable and transparent.
• Raise standards across development, testing, QA and releases.
• Build a strong partnership between Product and Engineering.
• Manage technical debt pragmatically across established and legacy technology.
• Strengthen engineering capability, reliability and resilience.
• Own the engineering budget and make informed investment decisions.
• Shape how AI is used effectively and responsibly within Engineering.

✅ What we’re looking for

We’re looking for an engineering leader, not simply the most senior engineer in the room.

Must have:

• Significant software engineering experience with substantial leadership responsibility
• Proven experience leading and developing multidisciplinary engineering teams
• Experience improving an engineering organisation, not simply maintaining one
• Strong evidence of improving delivery predictability and engineering execution
• Deep understanding of modern software development practices, testing, QA and release management
• Experience managing technical debt and working with established or legacy platforms
• Strong people leadership, including hiring, developing, coaching and managing performance
• Strong written communication and documentation discipline, with experience making critical engineering knowledge less dependent on individuals
• Experience working closely with Product leadership
• Strong technical judgement and commercial awareness
• Good understanding of reliability, observability and production support
• Practical fluency with modern AI development tools
• The right to work in the UK. Visa sponsorship may be considered for an exceptional candidate
• Experience within payroll, workforce technology, fintech or another regulated, financially sensitive or operationally complex environment would be a strong advantage.

🙅 This role probably isn't for you if...

• You’ve only led Engineering in mature organisations where the teams, processes and architecture were already built for you
• You believe every legacy platform needs rewriting
• You value technical elegance over delivering meaningful business outcomes
• You avoid accountability for delivery, quality or performance.

💰 What we offer

• Remote-first, within the UK. Work from wherever you do your best thinking.
• Flexible hours. We care about output, not when you’re online.
• 23 days’ holiday, increasing by one day for each full year of service up to a maximum of 26 days, plus UK bank holidays and your birthday off, with the option to buy up to 10 additional days each year.
• Workplace pension.
• Giant Advantage perks: supermarket and retail discounts, salary-sacrifice schemes including electric cars, Nuffield gym discounts, and more.
• Quarterly leadership meetups in London, a day or two together, fully paid for, with a social afterwards.
• Learning & development support, with a budget you’ll help shape as you build out and own your department.
• Long-service rewards and referral bonuses.
• Real ownership from day one. No bureaucracy, no hand-holding, no waiting in line, and the backing and stability of a 30-year, independent business behind you.

📅 Application Deadline

Applications close on Friday 11 September 2026

🔄 How our hiring process works

We keep it straightforward and respectful of your time.

1. CV and initial application
2. Introductory conversation. A straightforward discussion about Giant, the engineering challenge and your experience.
3. Engineering leadership discussion and practical assessment. A deeper conversation about the teams and systems you’ve led, what you changed and what happened as a result, alongside a practical discussion relevant to the work you would genuinely do.
4. Senior leadership conversation. An opportunity to explore the relationship between Engineering, Product, technology and the wider business.
5. Final conversation with our Group CEO. As much your opportunity to decide whether Giant is right for you as ours to decide whether you’re right for Giant.

All roles at Giant Group are subject to pre-employment checks. We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer, and welcome applications from all candidates, including those with a disability, who meet the essential criteria for the role. Please note that we may close this advert early, so we encourage early applications.