Head of Platform Engineering

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Head of Platform Engineering

Department: Engineering

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Bristol, UK

Description

We're building the next UK-headquartered engineering powerhouse.

There is a gulf between the needs of mission-focused organisations and the development

and delivery of the critical technology they rely on. The consequences of this are felt acutely

by underserved frontline operators, demanding a new breed of engineering enterprise to

bridge this divide.

Rowden exists to meet this need. We design and build systems, infrastructure, and

applications to deliver mission advantage to those working to protect the security of the UK

and its allies. Rowden is setting a new standard in government technology provision: hyper-

efficient engineering, better customer relationships, and rapid assimilation of commercial

technology.

As part of this journey, we are scaling our platforms team. This team builds intelligent,

resilient, and private solutions from the cloud to the far-edge, ensuring robust and secure

operations for our clients. This position offers an incredible opportunity to do purposeful

work in a fast-paced and challenging environment, and be part of the founding team of our

platforms and product business. We are looking for individuals who are driven, collaborative,

and passionate about making a difference.

Salary: Competitive - based on experience

Key areas of responsibility

As our Head of Platform Engineering, you will be responsible for:

Technical Leadership:

• Define and implement the overall technical strategy and architecture for our secure mission platform offerings.
• Lead the design and development of scalable, secure, and high-performance cloud and mobile infrastructure and software solutions.
• Ensure the alignment of engineering activities with business objectives and product strategy.

Stakeholder and Customer Engagement:

• Work closely with the General Manager and other senior leaders to align engineering efforts with business goals.
• Communicate technical concepts and strategies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Represent the company at industry events, conferences, and meetings with clients and partners.

Product Development Governance and Quality:

• Drive the end-to-end software development lifecycle, from requirements gathering and design to deployment and maintenance.
• Ensure rigorous testing, quality assurance, and security practices are followed.
• Collaborate with our software teams to deliver features and improvements on
  time and within budget.

Team Management:

• Recruit, hire, build and oversee a high-performing engineering team as the business scales.
• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Innovation and R&D:

• Stay abreast of the latest industry trends, technologies, and best practices.
• Evaluate and integrate new technologies that can enhance our products and services.
• Promote a culture of innovation and encourage the exploration of new ideas and approaches.

Key skills, experience and behaviours

We are looking for someone passionate about technology who actively invests in their

technical skills and abilities. You'll gain extensive experience in this role, but before you do,

you should have:

Ability to Learn at Pace:
Quickly grasp new concepts and make challenging trade-off decisions.

Technical Experience:Proficiency in the following areas, with varying depth based on your background:

• Extensive experience in designing and building scalable, high-performance software systems.
• Experience with high-performance compute environments and optimisation techniques.
• Proven track record in developing and assuring mission-critical solutions.
• An understanding of cybersecurity principles, practices, and continuous assurance.

Leadership Skills:
Strong leadership and team-building skills to inspire junior engineers and colleagues.

Problem-Solving Abilities:Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and decision-making abilities.

Communication Skills:
Effective communication and interpersonal skills.

Architectural Planning:
Ability to plan complex software and infrastructure architectures at both broad and detailed levels.

Technical Communication:
Competence in explaining technical plans and risks to business stakeholders of varying technical levels.

Documentation Skills:Provide clear documentation and architecture diagrams, plus governance and assurance documents.

Highly Desirable Experience:

Experience in regulated sectors delivering complex networked systems, such as defence, national security, telecommunications, financial services, or automotive industries.

Working at Rowden

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to

create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so

please apply and come as you are!

We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We

typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each

week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time

working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.

Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people

with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your

requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to

help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.

Finally, if you feel that you don't meet all the criteria included above but have transferable

skills and relevant experience, we'd still love to hear from you!