Head of Engineering

Automation Consultants

Head of Engineering leading technical direction and team growth at AppFox, driving AI innovation and product development.

Posted 6/22/2026full-timeReading • 🇬🇧 United KingdomLead💰 £110,000 - £120,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloud

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own the technical direction of AppFox’s products and the new application (architecture, standards and tooling) and evolve them as the business and the technology landscape move.
Lead, coach and grow a team of 13 engineers, including two team leads and a layer of lead engineers.
Be accountable for security, privacy and quality across the engineering org.
Partner closely with the Head of Product. Bring engineering reasoning to the table early and in the open, so decisions are made with shared understanding.
Spot where AI adds genuine value across the portfolio - and, just as importantly, where it doesn’t, and lead the team to ship AI- and LLM-powered features that hold up in production: sound on evaluation, cost, latency and safety, not just impressive in a demo.
Develop people deliberately, especially emerging leaders, creating space for them to grow rather than directing every outcome.

Requirements

What you’ll need

A Computer Science or other strongly numerate degree, 2:1 or above.
A proven track record of leading and growing software engineering teams, including direct people management through change. Non-negotiable.
A broad hands-on background across multiple stacks, companies and problem types.
Hands-on experience using AI tooling to accelerate engineering work, with a real point of view on where the discipline is heading.
Experience building — or leading teams that have built — AI- or LLM-powered product features, with the judgement to know where AI earns its place.
Strong grounding in modern full-stack development and cloud-native delivery on AWS, with the CI/CD and agile practices that keep a team performing at a high level.
Enough technical credibility to challenge an architectural decision and be taken seriously.
Excellent communication, and the presence to operate credibly with both the team and company leadership.

Benefits

Comp & perks

33 days annual leave (including bank holidays)
Hybrid working and flexible hours
Private healthcare and dental insurance
Enhanced maternity and paternity
Personal training budget and dedicated development plan
Electric car scheme and Cycle to Work
Pension scheme
On-site gym, showers, yoga and more
Regular company-wide and team socials

ATS Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

software engineeringAI toolingfull-stack developmentcloud-native deliveryAWSCI/CDagile practicesarchitectural decision-makingLLM-powered featuresnumerate degree

Soft Skills

leadershipcoachingteam developmentcommunicationcollaborationaccountabilitystrategic thinkingpeople managementdecision-makingemerging leader development