Director of Engineering

• To ensure Engineering teams deliver secure digital products.
• To manage a centre for AI excellence for practical and ethical values.
• About Our Client

Marie Curie plays a leading role in shaping the end of life system across the UK; driving research, influencing public policy, campaigning for change, and fighting for better services - so everyone has access to the end of life care and support they need.

Over the next five years and beyond, our mission is to close the gap in end-of-life care.

Between now and 2028, we'll design and deliver services providing the best possible care and support to people living with any terminal illness, and those close to them.

Everyone will be affected by dying, death and bereavement. That can't be changed, but the end-of-life experience can.

Everyone deserves the best possible care and support, reflecting what's most important to them.

The Director of Engineering is a senior technology leader responsible for building, running, and continuously improving the organisation's digital and data engineering capability.

Reporting to the CTO, the role ensures that engineering teams deliver reliable, scalable, and secure digital products that support the charity's mission, increase supporter engagement, and improve internal productivity.

Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, and close working relationships with all members of the executive team.

This role has accountability for

• Data and Insights engineering.
• Web and digital channel product engineering.
• CRM and Microsoft Dynamics development.
• An AI Centre of Excellence (AI Co E) focused on practical, ethical value.
• Engineering standards, platforms, and ways of working.
• The technical architecture of the organisation.
• Key Relationships

Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, and close working relationships with all members of the executive team.

• Direct influence and close working with Senior leaders across the organisation.
• Partnering with the Head of Technology Product Management and product leaders across the organisation to ensure we deliver an Agile, continuous improvement culture based on clearly defined and managed products.
• Direct control of the engineering function.
• Providing advice and information to Executives and Trustees regarding the architecture and technology strategy of the Organisation.
• Strong relationship with the product owners across the organisation.
• Influence a wide range of managers throughout the Organisation.

Job Description

Accountabilities

Working as a core member of the T&T leadership team, provide leadership to the engineering function to be considered 'Best in Class within the Industry.

The Director of Engineering is responsible for ensuring that our application stack and architecture is as simple and efficient as possible, whilst supporting the charity strategy.

• Own the development and implementation of industry-leading engineering standards across the function.
• Support the ongoing evolution and delivery of the charity-wide AI. Strategy that improves outcomes for patients, drives efficiencies across the charity and increases income.
• Ensure cross-functional working to deliver on time and to budget and to agreed levels of quality.
• Ensure the highest levels of quality in all engineering work, leading the implementation of AI-supported development and testing.
• Develop and maintain product-based delivery roadmaps.
• Implement squad-based teams to support agile delivery of product improvements.
• Ensure accurate prioritisation and resource allocation.
• Implement industry leading KPI's and KRI's and implement reporting and governance to provide enhanced assurance of delivery quality.

Specific responsibilities are as follows

• Engineering Leadership & Delivery
• Public-facing web platforms, customer-focused channels and digital services.
• Internal business systems and integrations.
• CRM and Dynamics-based solutions.
• Ensure predictable, high-quality delivery against agreed roadmaps and priorities.
• Balance pace, quality, and sustainability in a charity context.
• Establish clear engineering ownership, accountability, and performance expectations.
• Act as a senior escalation point for delivery, quality, and operational risk.
• Define and enforce engineering standards across: Code quality and testing, & Security and resilience.
• Champion modern, pragmatic engineering practices appropriate to an agile framework delivering modern products in a healthcare environment.
• Drive reuse, shared platforms, and common components to reduce duplication.
• Improve engineering productivity, predictability, and morale.
• Data and insights strategic leadership
• Work with the Head of Data and Insights and all key charity-wide stakeholders to transform the charity to an insights-led organisation where actionable insight is available across the organisation.
• Develop insight and data metrics to ensure the highest standards of data and insight management, ensuring our underlying data quality and data management meets the business needs.
• Ensure the data architecture is simple but capable of delivering the highest levels of insight and supports the charity's strategy of "being the easiest to partner with" - meaning we should be able to import and export data simply and seamlessly.
• Ensure our data is suitable to support the charity's AI strategies.
• Web & Customer Channel Engineering
• Own the engineering capability underpinning all web and channel products.
• Ensure platforms are secure, resilient, and performant. Accessible and inclusive by design and scalable to meet growing demand.
• Work closely with Product, UX, Fundraising, CS and CRM teams to translate needs into robust technical solutions.
• Drive continuous improvement in digital experience and conversion performance.
• CRM & Microsoft Dynamics Development
• Lead development and optimisation of CRM and Dynamics platforms supporting: Fundraising and supporter engagement, care service operations and corporate and back-office processes.
• Ensure solutions are well-architected, extensible, and aligned to organisational data strategy.
• Reduce technical debt and customisation risk over time.
• Enable faster change without compromising data integrity or compliance.
• AI Centre of Excellence (AI Co E)
• Establish and lead an AI Centre of Excellence focused on practical, responsible AI adoption.
• Partner with Data, Information Governance, and Legal teams to ensure: Ethical, transparent, and explainable AI use, clear human-in-the-loop accountability and compliance with regulatory and charity-sector expectations.
• Enable engineering teams to safely adopt AI for: Productivity and automation, insight generation and decision support and enhanced digital and supporter experiences.
• Translate AI strategy into deliverable, value-led engineering outcomes.
• Future Architecture Responsibility (Evolving)
• System and solution architecture.
• Technology standards and reference architectures.
• Long-term platform evolution.
• Strategic Change

Advise on risks related to new initiatives, major changes of strategy and other major changes.

• Advise on risks related to new initiatives, major changes of strategy and other major changes.
• Advise on the potential impact of new and emerging risks on the group strategy.
• The Successful Applicant

Essential Criteria

• Proven experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering teams at a senior level.
• Staff management and leadership experience, with the ability to deliver results; able to motivate and empower staff members and to provide appropriate support to enable others to succeed.
• Ability to lead and drive change.
• Experience establishing or leading AI engineering teams and delivering real-world outcomes with Agentic and Gen AI.
• Experience in implementing Agile, squad-based delivery teams.
• Exposure to system or solution architecture at enterprise scale, especially in an AI context.
• Strong background in web and digital platform engineering.
• Hands-on experience with CRM and Dynamics-based solutions.
• Track record of improving engineering delivery, quality, and reliability.
• Familiarity with cloud-based platforms and modern integration patterns.
• Experience modernising legacy systems pragmatically.
• Proven experience leading continuous improvement initiatives across a complex organisation.
• Experience working in complex, regulated, or mission-critical environments.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, excellent communication and interpersonal abilities, and strong and proven leadership skills.
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with operational execution.
• Other
• Degree-level educated, or time-bound equivalent through extensive experience.
• What’s on Offer

Competitive salary of £110,000-£120,000 , dependent on the level of experience, plus pension, life assurance, 25 days' annual leave and additional benefits.

Hybrid working in place

Home-based and London Office.

General

In addition to the specific duties and responsibilities outlined in this job description, all Marie Curie employees should be aware of their specific responsibilities towards the following:

Marie Curie is committed to encouraging volunteering throughout the organisation and as such the post holder will be expected to support and respect volunteers, and may be asked to work alongside or supervise a volunteer as part of their role whilst working at Marie Curie.

Marie Curie operates a no-smoking policy.

The post holder should either be a non-smoker or be prepared not to smoke in any Charity premises, grounds or vehicles or when on Marie Curie business outside the office.

Adhere to all health and safety and fire regulations and to co-operate with the Charity in maintaining good standards of health and safety.

Adhere to all information governance, privacy and security policies, standards, guidelines and procedures; practise and promote secure behaviours.

Adhere to all Marie Curie policies and procedures at all times.

Actively promote and support the safeguarding of vulnerable adults, young people and children, observing and adhering to Marie Curie policies on safeguarding.

Uphold ethical and professional standards and not behave in a manner that is likely to bring the Charity into disrepute.

Promote and sustain a responsible attitude towards equal opportunities and diversity within the Charity.

Demonstrate a commitment to ongoing registration requirements or any national professional or occupational standards associated with the role.

Demonstrate a commitment to ongoing learning and development and to participate in any training relevant to the role.

For designated roles, the post holder will be responsible for health & safety, information governance, business continuity planning and/or risk management. (These responsibilities will be notified on appointment).

This job description is not exhaustive.

It serves merely as a guide and may be amended at any time to meet the charity's changing requirements, after discussion with the post holder.

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