VP Engineering

VP Engineering

Department: Engineering

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Bristol, UK

Reporting To: Rob Harper

We’re building the UK’s next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience. Rowden specializes in turning advances in sensing, AI, and communications into operational capability for the edge. We accelerate technology deployment, improve decision‑making for frontline teams, and protect people and critical assets in demanding environments. Headquartered in Bristol, we employ around 160 people and operate over 20,000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing facilities.

Rowden is looking for a VP Engineering to lead and strengthen the engineering discipline across the company as we scale into the next phase of growth. The role owns the engineering function as a discipline: people, capabilities, standards, practices and technical calibration that underpin everything Rowden builds. You will not directly own engineering delivery; that responsibility sits within the business lines.

Instead you are responsible for ensuring the engineering organisation has the right people, operating at the right standard, with the right technical and leadership behaviours across the company.

You will lead an engineering team that works across FPGA, RF, embedded systems, distributed software, ML and applications engineering. The breadth is substantial, so you don’t need to be the deepest expert in every domain – it is about exercising strong technical judgement, recognising quality, building trust with technical leaders, and creating an engineering function that consistently performs at a high bar.

The role will suit someone who is technically credible, operationally grounded, comfortable making hard decisions, and motivated by building a high‑performance engineering organisation in a demanding, mission‑led environment.

Candidates must be eligible for SC clearance. More information about security clearance is available at

• Own the overall engineering discipline across Rowden, including standards, practices, technical quality and engineering culture.
• Establish consistent engineering expectations across teams, including code quality, review practices, testing, design documentation, security and technical debt management.
• Ensure engineering quality remains high as the business scales rapidly across multiple lines.
• Balance standardisation with pragmatism, recognising where consistency improves execution and where flexibility is required for innovation.

• Lead the Chief Engineers and engineering leadership community, strengthening technical leadership capability.
• Own the engineering talent pipeline end‑to‑end, including hiring strategy, progression, succession planning and performance management, partnering with Talent & People.
• Maintain a high‑performance and high‑trust engineering culture.
• Make difficult people and organisational decisions early and decisively where standards, behaviours or performance fall below the required bar.

• Provide technical leadership and judgement across a broad range of engineering disciplines.
• Contribute to delivery through engagement with technical discussions, design reviews, integration activity, manufacturing sessions and customer trials.
• Add value through technical judgement, challenge and calibration across disciplines rather than narrow domain ownership.
• Support strong technical decision‑making across business lines and engineering teams.
• Recognise technical, delivery and organisational risks early and intervene appropriately.
• Plan, prioritise and implement initiatives to build and improve engineering capabilities while balancing delivery work.
• Help maintain a strong balance between engineering excellence, pace and operational delivery.

• Lead through line management and influence, within a hybrid reporting model spanning multiple lines and domains.
• Work closely with the CEO, COO, Business Line Leads, Chief Architect, VP Platforms and VP…