Engineering Director in London

About Us

Now part of WGSN, the world's leading trend forecaster. IWSR is the global authority on beverage alcohol data and intelligence. For over 50 years, the world's leading drinks businesses have relied on IWSR as an integral part of their strategic planning and decision-making. We're unique in how we work: combining proprietary longitudinal market data, consumer insights, and AI-enhanced data science with genuine on-the-ground human intelligence across 160 markets. That combination is what lets us tell our clients not just what the numbers say, but what's actually happening in the global beverage alcohol market. Our clients span the full breadth of the industry, multinational spirits, beer, and wine producers; packaging and ingredient manufacturers; distributors; and financial institutions, all using our data to plan strategy and investment with confidence.

About the role

The Engineering Director leads IWSR's technology function. You'll set technical strategy and architecture, hold technical accountability for delivery, and work closely with the Chief Product Officer, the programme management function, and internal stakeholders to shape what gets built and why. This isn't a pure people management role. The team already has strong engineering management in place. What it needs from its director is technical leadership, strategic clarity, and the ability to build trusted relationships with a demanding set of stakeholders. Day to day delivery execution and roadmap tracking sit with the programme management function. This role owns technical strategy, architecture, and technical accountability for delivery.

What you will be responsible for:

• Technology strategy and roadmap: Shape the technical strategy behind the roadmap in partnership with the Chief Product Officer, working through the implications of commercial priorities, research cycle requirements, and platform capability. Contribute to roadmap definition beyond the immediate horizon, identifying where technology can create new product opportunities or unlock efficiencies that aren't yet visible to the business. Represent the technology function in leadership discussions. Translate between commercial ambition and delivery reality.
• Delivery: Hold technical accountability for delivery across IWSR's product portfolio: the client platform, internal researcher tooling, and emerging data products. Set architectural direction and technical standards, and make the calls on how things get built. Partner closely with the programme management function, who own day to day delivery execution and roadmap tracking, to make sure technical risk is surfaced early, dependencies are understood, and architecture decisions are made deliberately.
• Stakeholder relationships: Maintain a close working relationship with the CPO on client platform requirements. This involves a genuine degree of product management, not just execution. Work with the internal product manager for internal tooling to make sure the research team's needs are heard and prioritised appropriately. Build direct relationships with the research team, particularly the Head of Research and senior researchers, to understand how the research process works and where technology can support it.
• AI and engineering practice: Champion the adoption of AI within the engineering organisation, not as a side project but as a core change to how the team works. This includes professional AI assisted development, code review, documentation, and testing. Drive IWSR's broader AI enablement programme, making sure the business can take practical advantage of AI tools in research, data processing, and client facing workflows. Stay close to the evolving AI landscape and make informed bets on where investment will have the most impact.
• Team and culture: Set and communicate clear engineering standards. Make sure architectural decisions are made deliberately and documented. Contribute to hiring and team development as the function evolves.

What we are looking for:

• Strong technical background, comfortable discussing architecture, infrastructure and engineering trade-offs even if you're not writing production code day to day.
• Experience leading technology delivery in a data-heavy or research-heavy environment, familiar with the challenges of products where data quality is the product.
• Excellent stakeholder management, this role sits at the intersection of research, product and engineering.
• A genuine interest in AI, not as a buzzword, with experience applying it in an engineering context strongly preferred.
• Comfort operating in a relatively small team, hands-on in some areas even while leading strategically.

Useful context: IWSR is part of the WGSN group. The engineering function has a close relationship with WGSN's technology organisation, and part of this role involves navigating that relationship, understanding what IWSR needs to build itself versus what it can draw from shared group capability.

Benefits

• In addition to a competitive salary, IWSR offers:
• Generous time off: 25 days holiday plus bank holidays and a company-wide end-of-year break.
• Flexible work environment: Hybrid working model with flexible hours.
• Comprehensive perks: Annual bonus scheme, pension, regular social events, and a volunteering policy.
• Growth opportunities: Lots of learning and development opportunities.