Director of Engineering

Director of Engineering
Remote (UK-based) | Full-time | £123,969 + benefits

Oak is a fully remote, mission-driven organisation offering high levels of flexibility, autonomy, and purpose. We’re a national not-for-profit organisation working in partnership with teachers to create high-quality, sequenced curriculum and lesson resources for pupils across all subjects and age groups.

Our culture has been independently recognised through:

• Flexa verified (93% overall score, including 95% for working hours and 97% for role modelling).
• Escape the City's Top 1% Employers – based on anonymous colleague reviews of culture, development, and impact.
• Investors in People Gold - through external accreditation and colleague feedback.

We’re looking for someone to lead the software engineering behind a national education platform, opening up curriculum data and safe AI to support brilliant teaching in every classroom.

Oak is entering a critical new phase. Over the next three years, we will support the implementation of a revised national curriculum, deepen adoption of our digital products across schools, and play a leading role in shaping the safe and ethical use of AI in education.

We are now seeking a Director of Engineering to lead the technology that underpins this work.

This is a senior leadership role with responsibility for Oak’s engineering strategy, technical architecture and platform delivery. You will lead engineering teams to build and operate reliable, secure and scalable systems that support teachers at scale and enable innovation across the education sector.

You’ll work closely with product, design, data, teachers and content leaders to ensure our technology choices are grounded in real classroom needs, strong pedagogy and value for money, while also pushing forward what’s possible with the latest approaches and tools. You’ll empower teams to get solutions built and products and features shipped.

We welcome applications from candidates with senior engineering leadership experience across technology, digital or public service environments, including those who have not previously worked in education.

If you’re excited by the challenge of building dependable systems that quietly do the heavy lifting for teachers, and shaping how safe AI is used across the sector, we’d love to hear from you.

• Develop and manage a high-performing Engineering department, leveraging internal and/or external relationships
• Manage the Engineering department budget (minimum of 6-figures)
• Accountable for the department's delivery against division and organisation-wide KPIs.
• Set and lead Oak’s technical direction, ensuring secure, scalable and high-performing platforms aligned with organisational and product priorities and public sector digital standards.
• Oversee software engineering, architecture, embedding engineering excellence, operational reliability, strong SDLC practice and continuous improvement, and ensuring compliance with relevant digital, security and data standards (including GDS and GDPR).
• Lead the implementation of data-intensive and emerging technologies (including AI/ML), ensuring production-ready systems and compliance with Oak’s technical and safety requirements.
• Member of the Senior Leadership Team.
• Lead the strategy and planning, and model the culture of the organisation.
• Work in cross-functional and product-oriented squads with colleagues from across the organisation, as required.
• Deputise for the CEO and take on other general responsibilities as required.

• 3+ years’ experience overseeing engineering or technical capabilities of a department or division.
• Experience of being part of a senior or wider leadership team.
• Experience of recruiting, developing and managing a high-performing department
• Experience of managing a 6-figure budget and ensuring value for money.
• Extensive experience delivering secure, scalable, high-quality digital services in production environments.
• Experience implementing and operating data-intensive or emerging technologies (e.g., AI/ML), ensuring safe, reliable and responsible deployment.
• Experience leading the evolution of engineering systems over…