Director of Platform Engineering

About SailGP

The Role x SailGP Championship is the most exciting racing on water, where anything can happen in short, adrenaline-fueled battles between national teams at iconic stadium destinations worldwide. Top athletes fly in identical high-tech F50 catamarans faster than the wind, at speeds in excess of 100km/h (60mph). Founded in 2018, SailGP is one of the world’s fastest-growing sports and entertainment properties, now in its sixth season.

SailGP also races for a better future, championing a world powered by nature. Underpinning the organisation’s purpose-driven agenda is a diversification of the league, with the goal of immediately progressing gender equity and inclusivity.

SailGP is a global organisation with defined values that shape the culture of its team – Deliver Quality and Consistency;
Evolve with Focus;
Make it Count;
Stand Together and Strike a Balance.

The Director of Platform Engineering is a senior technical leader responsible for the long-term technological vision, development, and evolution of SailGP’s digital and data ecosystem. This role oversees the production software powering our digital estate (e.g. , SailGP App/ Headsets, SailGPInsights, SailGP Media Portal, Fan Simulator), and betting applications, they are responsible for the entire technology stack supporting these products.

As a Director, you will bridge the gap between business strategy and technical execution, partnering with executive leadership across the Digital and Technology teams. You will build and scale a high-performing engineering organisation, oversee architecture and engineering standards, manage vendor relationships, and drive day-to-day AI automation. This position requires a strong blend of strategic foresight, people leadership, and a deep understanding of advanced engineering practices to deliver a world-class digital experience for a global audience.

• Team Building:
  Recruit, mentor, and lead a high-performing, multi-disciplinary team of software engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and engineering excellence.
• Technical Vision:
  Define and execute the long-term technical roadmap and architecture strategy, ensuring alignment with SailGP’s broader commercial and digital business objectives.
• Stakeholder Alignment:
  Act as a strategic partner to the Group Technology Director to prioritise initiatives and translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Budget & Vendor Management:
  Oversee the software engineering budget, evaluate third-party technologies, and manage relationships with external development agencies and SaaS vendors.
• Collaboration:
  
  Work closely with Director of Performance Engineering and Director of Liveline to end-to-end data pipeline is fit for purpose.

• System Architecture:
  Guide architectural decisions and establish technical standards across the organisation, ensuring scalability, security, and high availability for platforms like , the SailGP App/ Headsets, Fan Simulator and SailGP Insights.
• Production Ownership:
  Oversee the maintenance and evolution of production software, implementing best-practice with an AI first software engineering approach (agile methodologies, unit testing, refactoring, rigorous code reviews, and CI/CD pipelines).
• Performance & SEO:
  Direct technical strategies for concurrency, profiling, and performance optimisation in high-traffic, live-event environments. Ensure all platforms adhere to foundational and technical SEO principles.
• AI & Automation:
  Lead the evaluation and implementation of day-to-day AI automation tools to improve development workflows, content delivery, and user experiences.

• UX & Front-End Strategy:
  Champion strong UX design principles and integrate complex front-end code dependencies, ensuring technical solutions provide intuitive, engaging user journeys.
• Platform Expertise:
  Leverage deep experience in enterprise headless CMS platforms (such as Contentful) to create flexible, omnichannel content delivery architectures.
• Agile Adaptation:
  Maintain the team's…