Head of Engineering in Edinburgh

Malted builds specialised intelligence for financial institutions. Our products combine advanced language technology with deep domain understanding to help firms make faster, more accurate and more accountable decisions. We focus entirely on financial services, working with leading banks, insurers and regulators to turn complex reasoning into clear, dependable intelligence. Our flagship product, Malted Pulse, provides AI that reasons transparently and can be inspected, governed and tuned to organisational policy.

We’re a small, highly technical team based in Edinburgh, combining deep machine learning experience with a rigorous approach to product design and engineering. We believe that making AI systems understandable isn’t just an ethical necessity, it’s a competitive advantage.

About the team: You’ll join the Pulse product team, responsible for building and evolving the systems that power Malted Pulse. The team designs and operates the distributed infrastructure that enables our customers to deploy reasoning agents at scale, with reliability, traceability and performance at the core.

What you’ll do: As Head of Engineering, you’ll be responsible for owning and scaling Malted’s engineering organisation. You’ll focus on people leadership, delivery planning and execution, ensuring teams are well-supported, well-coordinated and consistently shipping high-quality, secure and reliable systems. You’ll partner closely with our Chief Architect, who owns architecture and technical direction, and other technical leaders to turn technical strategy. This is a senior leadership role for someone who enjoys building strong teams, creating clarity in complex environments and enabling engineers to do their best work at scale. You’ll work closely with company leadership to translate business strategy into realistic plans, timelines and resourcing models, while shaping a healthy, high-performance engineering culture.

Responsibilities:

• Own and lead the engineering organisation across frontend, backend, machine learning, and design.
• Build, develop and retain high-performing engineering squads through hiring, coaching and mentorship.
• Own delivery planning and execution for Malted Pulse, ensuring work is well-scoped, prioritised and delivered predictably.
• Partner closely with the Chief Architect and other leadership to translate architectural strategy into delivery plans and milestones.
• Establish and maintain effective engineering processes for planning, estimation, execution and retrospectives.
• Ensure engineering best practices are followed across squads, including code quality, testing, security and operational reliability.
• Support onboarding, performance management and career development across the engineering organisation.
• Stay technically engaged enough to review designs, unblock delivery challenges and support engineers when needed.

Who you are:

You’re a senior engineering leader who thrives at the intersection of people, process and delivery. You care deeply about building high-performing teams and believe that great technical outcomes are a product of strong organisation, trust and clarity. You’re technically literate, comfortable engaging in design discussions, and skilled at turning complex strategies into executable plans.

Eligible to work in the UK

10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including senior engineering leadership roles. Proven experience leading and scaling engineering teams in a high-growth or complex environment. Strong experience with delivery management, planning and execution across multiple teams. Technical background sufficient to engage meaningfully in system design and engineering discussions. Familiarity with modern backend technologies and cloud platforms (e.g. AWS). Working knowledge of distributed systems, APIs and production infrastructure. Experience with containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes) and CI/CD pipelines (oversight level). Strong understanding of engineering trade-offs around quality, speed and reliability. Comfortable working in a fast-paced, collaborative startup environment.

Preferred requirements:

• Experience leading engineering teams in enterprise or regulated environments (e.g. finance, insurance).
• Background in deep tech, data-intensive or ML-enabled products.
• Experience scaling teams, processes and platforms through periods of rapid growth.
• Strong understanding of security, compliance and operational risk management.
• Experience partnering closely with architecture or platform leadership roles.
• MSc or higher degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field.

Working at Malted:

We’re based in Edinburgh and work from the office three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). The rest of the week is work from home. We keep a high bar for technical quality but a low tolerance for ego. You’ll join a team that values precision, humour and intellectual honesty.

Benefits include:

• Pension and stock options.
• Medical and life insurance.
• Hybrid working and ad-hoc flexibility.
• The chance to work on one-of-a-kind products at the forefront of the AI industry.
• Professional development and growth opportunities.
• A collaborative, inclusive workplace that promotes innovation and teamwork.
• Free snacks and drinks.
• Social events and company outings.
• Relocation assistance for candidates moving to Edinburgh.

Malted is an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. We are not working with recruitment agencies on this role – we are keen to hear directly from candidates who are excited about what we’re building at Malted.