Director of Engineering & Technology

Reports to: CEO, EF English Live

Location: Budapest, London, or Barcelona.

Some travel between EF locations may be required.

EF English Live is embarking on an ambitious transformation. We are building the capability to embed AI across our product, marketing, and operations — all while sustaining and growing our well‑established lead generation and telesales business and moving further into e‑commerce. This is a rare chance to own the full technology agenda of a global EdTech business at a genuine inflection point.

Today, the majority of English Live revenue comes via a well‑established telesales model. Ecommerce is in its early stages; we are piloting in several geographies and expect it to grow over time, rather than overnight. We are looking for a leader comfortable changing the engine while flying.

The Director of Engineering & Technology owns the technology direction, architecture and delivery for EF English Live and provides senior leadership across the function. Reporting to the CEO, the postholder is the primary technology interface to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT).

Working in partnership with the SLT, the postholder translates agreed business priorities into technology roadmaps and execution plans, ensuring the technology organisation delivers initiatives reliably, efficiently and with measurable business impact. The role is accountable for technology delivery, architecture, integrations, operational excellence and the long‑term health of the technology estate.

Note: The core online learning platform (content, classroom experience and core LMS) is owned and developed by Efekta’s central product and engineering teams. This role owns the technology, systems and integrations that support EF English Live’s commercial operations, including e‑commerce, Salesforce and sales technology, marketing and omnichannel platforms, customer‑facing business systems, and the integration and configuration of the Efekta platform for our customers.

Product ownership remains with the business and relevant product teams.

• A clear, agreed technology roadmap and delivery plan for EF English Live, aligned to business priorities and the commercial plan, and understood across the SLT and key teams.

• A functioning e‑commerce capability live in priority markets, integrated with Salesforce, payments and customer operations, while preserving telesales performance.

• AI‑enabled capabilities deployed across key customer, commercial and operational journeys, delivering measurable improvements in conversion, revenue and/or cost‑to‑serve.

• A stable, high‑performing technology organisation with clear ownership, engineering standards, reliable delivery practices, and strong partnerships across Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Transformation and Data.

• Translate agreed business priorities into technology roadmaps, delivery plans and investment recommendations, providing clear visibility on feasibility, dependencies, risks and trade‑offs.

• Partner with business stakeholders to identify, evaluate and deliver AI‑enabled capabilities across marketing, sales, customer experience and operations, while embedding AI‑driven ways of working within the technology function.

• Lead the evaluation and implementation of technology initiatives, assessing technical feasibility, operational impact, complexity, cost and long‑term maintainability.

• Own the overall technical architecture, ensuring it is scalable, secure, cost‑effective and fit for a global and AI‑driven business.

• Own technology delivery decisions, including architecture, platforms, integrations, technical standards and sequencing of work, ensuring resources are focused on the highest‑priority business outcomes.

• Lead CRM architecture, development and governance, ensuring the platform scales effectively and supports business, operational and customer experience requirements.

• Own the data platform and data engineering capability, ensuring data architecture, governance and availability support commercial, operational and customer experience objectives.

• Ens…