Vice President Software Engineering in Edinburgh

Our client, a rapidly scaling fintech, is seeking an exceptional Vice President of Software Engineering to lead and evolve a large, high-performing engineering organisation. This role sits at the intersection of technical leadership, organisational scale, and AI‐driven innovation. You will take ownership of an engineering function of 100–120 Software Engineers, supported by 6 Software Engineering Managers, and play a central role in shaping both capability and culture during a critical growth phase. This is a true player‐coach position—requiring deep technical credibility alongside proven leadership at scale.

• Lead, develop, and scale a multi‐layered engineering organisation, ensuring strong leadership at every level.
• Own delivery against a complex product roadmap, driving measurable business outcomes.
• Define engineering strategy, architecture, and organisational design aligned to growth objectives.
• Maintain hands‐on technical engagement, contributing to high‐level design and decision‐making.
• Champion AI‐first engineering practices, building on an environment where 80–90% of code is AI‐generated, with a roadmap to 95%+.
• Embed modern engineering excellence (CI/CD, trunk‐based development, observability, and automated testing).
• Partner cross‐functionally across Product, DevOps, Security, and Platform teams.
• Build a high‐performance culture grounded in accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.

• 8+ years in software engineering leadership roles, with at least 3+ years operating at VP level (or equivalent).
• Proven experience leading large‐scale engineering organisations (minimum 50+ engineers).
• Demonstrated success as a manager of managers, including developing senior engineering leaders.
• Track record of scaling teams and capabilities in high‐growth environments, ideally within startups or SME organisations.

• Strong hands‐on engineering background with the ability to remain technically engaged.
• Deep technical fluency across modern architectures and polyglot environments (including .NET/C#, with exposure to other languages such as Java or Ruby).
• Experience defining architecture and engineering strategy at scale.
• Ability to challenge, guide, and influence technical decisions at all levels.

• Proven experience working in an AI‐enabled or AI‐first engineering environment.
• Hands‐on use of AI‐assisted or agentic development tools (e.g. Claude or similar).
• Clear understanding of how AI can accelerate delivery, improve quality, and reshape engineering workflows.
• Experience driving adoption of AI tooling across teams and embedding it into the development lifecycle.

• Strong background in continuous delivery environments, where software is shipped to production frequently or daily.
• Expertise in modern practices including CI/CD pipelines, trunk‐based development, automated testing strategies, observability and system reliability.
• Proven ability to use engineering metrics to drive performance and continuous improvement.

• Experience designing and evolving engineering organisations using modern frameworks (e.g. Lean, Scrum, Kanban, XP).
• Strong understanding of team topologies (stream‐aligned, platform, enabling teams).
• Ability to align organisational structure to product and delivery needs.

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence executive stakeholders.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast‐moving environments.
• Strong problem‐solving mindset with a willingness to experiment and iterate.
• Values transparency, continuous learning, and candid feedback.
• Demonstrates curiosity, innovation, and the ability to identify novel solutions to complex challenges.

• Opportunity to lead a large, complex engineering function at scale.
• Significant influence over the evolution of AI‐driven software development practices.
• Join a high‐growth fintech at a pivotal stage of its journey.
• Work in an environment where engineering excellence and innovation are core to success.

If you are a technically credible engineering leader with experience scaling teams, embedding AI into development, and delivering at pace, this is a rare opportunity to make a significant impact.