Head of Engineering in Cambridge

Furthermore, here at FFE we value our employees giving them the freedom to be creative and innovative. Having a great team spirit and people that are proud to work for a company that saves lives, our teams see the direct impact of their efforts in the daily operations.

• Engineering Leadership & Strategy
  • Overall responsibility for electronics, mechanical, software and development engineering activities.
  • Translate the company’s technical and product strategy into clear engineering objectives and execution plans.
  • Create and implement best practice engineering vision, strategy, policies, processes and procedures to aid and improve business performance.
  • Ensure engineering outputs comply with relevant standards, regulations, and internal processes.
  • Champion the consistent use of formal problem‐solving tools, structured testing methodologies, documentation standards, and design governance.
  • Continuously assess and improve the development strategy for both new and existing products.
• People Management
  • Line management of the electronics, mechanical, software and development engineering teams.
  • Coach, mentor and develop direct reports (circa. 20 employees).
  • Set department objectives and monitor ongoing progress and performance.
  • Ensure strong communication between the teams to facilitate efficient exchange of information and in order to implement change and improvements.
  • Establish strategy and best practices for staff to ensure achievement of overall business objectives.
  • Build a high‐performance culture focused on accountability, collaboration, and technical excellence.
  • Identify capability gaps and drive upskilling, succession planning, and recruitment priorities.
  • Foster strong engagement and clear communication across engineering teams and the broader business.
• New Product Development (NPD) and Sustaining Engineering
  • Oversee engineering contributions to NPD projects, ensuring technical robustness, regulatory compliance, and on‐time delivery.
  • Ensure engineering teams deliver products that meet customer value propositions, performance, quality and cost targets.
  • Maintain high standards of testing, validation, verification, and design quality throughout the product lifecycle.
  • Contribute to sustaining engineering activity, ensuring product integrity, reliability, and customer satisfaction.
  • Ensure timely and effective resolution of issues impacting quality, regulatory compliance, or customer experience.
  • Act as a senior engineering representative in cross‐functional reviews, portfolio discussions, and strategic planning.

• Proven leadership experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering teams, including electronics, embedded software and mechanical engineering, within a product development environment.
• Direct experience delivering electronics-based products into medium or high volume manufacture, not just prototype or low-volume development.
• Proven ownership of engineering industrialisation, including Design for Manufacture (DFM), Design for Test (DFT), Design for Assembly (DFA) and Design for Cost (DFC).
• Strong background in safety critical or regulated products, with hands-on experience supporting certification, compliance and post certification change (e.g. fire, aerospace, industrial, medical or similar regulated environments).
• Demonstrated experience leading complex hardware / software product development programmes from concept through certification and into sustained production.
• Clear accountability for engineering handover to manufacturing, ensuring designs are production-ready, fully documented and supported through ramp-up and ongoing manufacture.
• Experience working closely with manufacturing, test engineering and supply chain teams, including engagement with contract manufacturers / EMS partners.
• Strong working knowledge of structured validation, verification, test and design governance, including formal design reviews, risk assessments and traceable test evidence.
• Proven ability to lead sustaining engineering, including issue resolution, obsolescence management, cost down activity, yield improvement and customer-led corrective actions.
• Track record of applying structured problem-solving methodologies (e.g. 8D, RCA, fault tree analysis) in both development and production environments.
• Educated to degree level in a relevant engineering discipline (electronics, electrical, embedded systems, mechanical or similar), or equivalent senior experience.

• Strong, hands-on engineering leadership style, with the credibility to challenge and support senior engineers and technical specialists.
• Clear experience setting direction, managing priorities and driving delivery across multiple concurrent projects.
• Commercial awareness of how engineering decisions impact product cost, margin, quality and lifecycle performance.
• Experience managing engineering budgets, resource planning and capability development.
• Ability to communicate complex technical issues clearly to non-technical stakeholders, including senior leadership.
• A pragmatic, delivery focused mindset, balancing technical excellence with business outcomes.

• Experience with long product lifecycles and configuration-controlled product portfolios.
• Exposure to multiple international certification regimes (e.g. EN / UL / FM / regional approvals).
• Experience working across multi-site engineering teams.
• Prior involvement in cost reduction and value engineering programmes post launch.

• 25 days Annual Leave
• Company bonus Scheme
• Halma Pension plan
• BUPA health insurance
• Simply Health cash plan
• EAP