System Engineering Lead

The Systems Engineering Lead is responsible for the technical leadership, delivery, and evolution of the Systems Engineering team. The team exists to design, build and enhance the systems, platforms, products and intellectual property that move Cloud Direct forward, with a particular focus on Artificial Intelligence, automation and emerging technologies.

This role is the senior technical leader within the Systems Engineering team, reporting to the Head of Business Systems alongside a Principal Architect, Systems Reliability and Automation team and Systems Operations team. While the Principal Architect owns architectural direction, governance and technical standards across Business Systems, the Systems Engineering Lead is accountable for translating that direction into successful engineering delivery which transforms the business.

The role combines hands‑on software engineering, technical leadership, coaching and delivery accountability. The successful candidate will lead a small but mighty team of software engineers (including graduates), shaping technical solutions from concept through to production whilst maintaining high standards of engineering quality, security and reliability.

Success in this role will be demonstrated by:

• Delivery of strategic systems, platforms and AI initiatives to agreed scope, quality and timelines.
• A high-performing engineering team with clear standards, effective ways of working and measurable development of engineers.
• Consistent delivery of secure, maintainable and supportable software with reduced technical debt and improved engineering maturity.
• Successful adoption of AI, automation and new technology capabilities that generate measurable business value.
• Strong alignment between engineering delivery and architectural strategy through effective partnership with the Principal Architect.
• Establishment of scalable engineering practices, tooling and processes that enable future growth of the Systems Engineering capability.

Technical Leadership:

• Provide technical leadership and direction for the Systems Engineering team.
• Lead solution design and key engineering decisions in partnership with the Principal Architect.
• Establish and maintain engineering standards, quality expectations and development practices through automation, testing, CI/CD, observability and development tooling.
• Provide deep technical leadership into selected customer innovation engagements, workshops and proof‑of‑concept activities where specialist engineering expertise is required.
• Lead the delivery of systems, platforms, integrations and AI‑enabled solutions.
• Remain hands‑on in the design, development and deployment of software where required.
• Ensure solutions are secure, scalable, maintainable and operationally supportable.
• Shape and prioritise technical work with stakeholders and product owners.
• Identify opportunities to apply AI, automation and emerging technologies to create business value.
• Translate emerging technologies from research and discovery activities into production‑ready solutions, prototypes and reusable intellectual property.
• Support customer‑facing innovation activities where deep technical expertise is required.
• Line manage, mentor and develop software engineers at all experience levels.
• Support recruitment, onboarding and capability development across the team.
• Foster a culture of engineering excellence, ownership and continuous improvement.

• 5+ years commercial software engineering experience (excluding junior roles).
• 3+ years experience leading engineering teams, technical programmes or senior technical initiatives.
• Proven experience designing and delivering complex business‑critical software solutions.
• Strong experience with Microsoft Azure platforms and cloud‑native development.
• Strong experience delivering AI‑enabled applications, intelligent automation solutions, or agent‑based systems.
• Experience with Azure OpenAI, AI Foundry or equivalent AI platforms.
• Experience building AI agents, copilots or workflow automation platforms.
• Experience using Azure Dev Ops, Git and CI/CD practices.
• Strong understanding of software security, Dev Sec Ops  and secure‑by‑design…