SVP of Engineering in London

Explicitly calls out "vibe coding" and adoption of AI-assisted dev tools (Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor) for rapid prototyping and improved developer experience.

About the Role

Senior technology leader to serve as SVP/CTO for SymphonyAI’s Supply Chain Division in EMEA, responsible for driving a multi-year transformation from legacy on-premise systems to a cloud-native, AI-first composable SaaS platform. Lead platform architecture, large engineering teams (150–300+), generative AI integration, client-facing technology engagements, and technical M&A decisions.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the multi-year roadmap for Systems of Execution (WMS, TMS, OMS) and Systems of Intelligence (demand planning, supply optimization, decision analytics).
• Architect transformation from monolithic legacy systems to composable, API-first, cloud-native SaaS using microservices and event-driven design.
• Embed AI/ML as a foundational design principle and integrate generative AI/LLMs for copilots, natural language interfaces, autonomous workflows, and agentic capabilities.
• Own technical due diligence for M&A, partnerships, and build-vs-buy decisions.

Engineering Leadership & Operational Excellence

• Build and scale engineering organization across Paris and global centers (target 150–300+ engineers).
• Establish CI/CD, automated testing, IaC, feature flagging, canary deployments, and observability-first culture.
• Drive metrics for deployment frequency, lead time, MTTR, change failure rate; implement platform reliability standards (target 99.95%+ uptime, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR/data sovereignty).
• Champion developer experience and AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor) and rapid prototyping workflows.
• Lead applied AI strategy for forecasting, inventory optimization, routing, supplier risk, and digital twins.
• Deploy generative AI across product features (LLM assistants, automated reporting, anomaly explanation, conversational analytics).
• Build agentic AI frameworks for autonomous supply chain actions and integrate privacy-preserving and sandboxing patterns.
• Run an innovation lab for rapid POCs with clients and productize successful experiments within ~90-day cycles.

Client-Facing Technology Leadership

• Serve as senior technology executive in strategic engagements with large retailers and CPG enterprises; present to CIOs/CTOs/CDOs.
• Lead technical strategy in deal pursuits, RFPs, proof-of-value, and contract renewals; co-create roadmaps with strategic accounts.
• Represent the company at industry conferences and analyst briefings.

Legacy-to-Modern Transformation

• Lead data model modernization, API gateway design, tenant isolation, and migration strategies for enterprise clients (parallel runs, phased cutovers).
• Modernize data architecture to support real-time streaming and graph-based modeling (Kafka, Flink) and unified analytics for operations and ML training.
• Transition release management from quarterly waterfall to continuous deployment with feature flags while protecting enterprise stability.

Strategic & Organizational Leadership

• Partner with the CEO on division strategy, planning, budgeting, and investment priorities.
• Align technology investments with market demand and ARR growth; own technology budget and resource allocation.
• Build a diverse engineering culture and chair a Technical Advisory Board of external supply chain and AI experts.

Requirements

Experience & Background

• 15+ years in enterprise software engineering and technology leadership; at least 5 years at VP/SVP/CTO level in supply chain, retail, or CPG technology.
• Deep domain expertise across System of Execution and System of Intelligence components of supply chain.
• Proven track record leading platform transformation from on-prem to cloud-native SaaS at enterprise scale (100+ enterprise clients, $50M+ ARR platform).
• Direct experience delivering production-grade, customer-facing AI/ML capabilities at scale.
• Familiarity with competitive supply chain platforms and experience working with retailers/CPG clients.

Technical Depth

• Strong architectural fluency: microservices, API-first, event-driven architecture, multi-tenant isolation, Kubernetes/container orchestration, serverless patterns.
• Working knowledge of cloud data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Azure Synapse) and real-time streaming (Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming).
• Familiarity with generative AI patterns (LLM fine-tuning, RAG, prompt engineering, function calling, agent frameworks) and graph/knowledge graph technologies.
• DevOps/SRE practices at scale: CI/CD, IaC (Terraform, Pulumi), observability (Datadog, Grafana), incident management.

Leadership Qualities

• Builder mentality with hands-on orientation; executive presence and strong communication skills; collaborative and bias for action; comfort with ambiguity.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at leading supply chain technology vendors or major retailers/CPG companies.
• Prior experience with data monetization, retail media intersection, outcome-based pricing, and multi-geography engineering organizations.
• Fluent in French and English; advanced quantitative degree (MS/PhD) a plus.

Skills

• Technology Vision
• System Architecture
• Cloud Migration
• AI Strategy
• ML/AI Productionization
• MLOps
• Microservices
• Event-driven Architecture
• DevOps/SRE
• CI/CD
• Infrastructure as Code
• Observability
• Incident Management
• Data Architecture
• Streaming Systems
• Client-facing Communication
• Stakeholder Management
• M&A Technical Due Diligence
• Organizational Leadership
• Change Management