Head of Product Engineering

Legal & General (L&G) is a leading UK financial services group and major global investor. We’ve been safeguarding people’s financial futures since 1836, striving to build a better society while improving the lives of our customers and creating value for shareholders. We are one of the world’s largest asset managers, offering powerful asset origination capabilities. Our retirement and protection solutions include pension risk transfer, UK and US life insurance, and UK workplace pensions and retirement income. L&G Institutional Retirement safeguards the retirement benefits of around 700,000 institutional customers.

We are seeking a strategic and experienced Head of Product Engineering to lead software engineering, architecture, testing, and technology roadmap execution for Institutional Retirement’s internally developed products.

What you’ll be doing:

• Defining the product engineering strategy to ensure alignment with business objectives and enterprise technology direction.
• Overseeing end‑to‑end software delivery, ensuring projects are executed on time, within budget, and to established quality standards.
• Leading and developing high‑performing, cross‑functional teams while fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
• Ensuring compliance with security, regulatory, and governance requirements, while managing and mitigating technical debt.
• Collaborating with senior stakeholders to align technology initiatives with strategic business goals and communicating technical concepts clearly to non‑technical audiences.
• Driving innovation in engineering practices, tools, and methodologies, and benchmarking performance against industry standards to maintain competitiveness.
• Upholding Consumer Duty principles by ensuring digital products and journeys support informed decision‑making and present key information transparently.
• Managing employee‑related matters in accordance with Group policies and the Partnership Agreement, applying consistent and fair leadership to optimise business performance.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline (or equivalent experience).
• Deep understanding of software engineering, solution architecture, testing, and technology roadmapping in complex, regulated environments.
• Proven ability to build and lead cross‑functional product engineering teams that deliver at scale and drive cultural transformation.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with experience influencing at C‑suite level.
• In‑depth knowledge of Agile, DevSecOps, and modern software development lifecycle methodologies.
• Familiarity with cloud‑native engineering, event‑driven architectures, and API‑led integration strategies.
• Hands‑on experience as a software developer and/or architect in enterprise‑scale environments.
• Demonstrated technology leadership within regulated financial services, ideally including pensions, life insurance, or asset management.

Benefits:

• The opportunity to participate in our annual, performance‑related bonus plan and share schemes.
• Generous pension contribution.
• Life assurance.
• Healthcare plan (permanent employees only).
• At least 25 days holiday, plus public holidays, 26 days after 2 years’ service – with options to buy and sell holiday.
• Competitive family leave.
• Participation in our electric car scheme, offering tax‑efficient salary‑sacrifice leasing (permanent employees only).
• Wide range of discounts on our own products and at high‑street stores and online.
• Modern, redesigned workspaces fostering collaboration and wellbeing.

At L&G, we believe it’s possible to generate positive returns today while building a better future for all. Join us for a welcoming, inclusive culture with opportunities to collaborate across diverse backgrounds and experience. We empower initiatives that support career development and excellence, and we offer flexible working options when possible. You don’t need to meet every single criterion; consider what strengths and potentials you bring to our purpose.