At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead and scale Radiant's engineering organisation, ensuring technical quality and reliability.
- Company: Join a pioneering startup redefining AI infrastructure with a collaborative culture.
- Benefits: Enjoy competitive benefits and the chance to shape the future of technology.
- Other info: Embrace challenges and diversity in a dynamic, innovative workplace.
- Why this job: Make a real impact by building high-performing teams in a fast-paced environment.
- Qualifications: Proven experience leading engineering teams and driving complex programmes.
The predicted salary is between 81000 - 99000 £ per year.
Company Overview: Radiant is redefining how AI infrastructure is built. We design and operate AI-native cloud platforms engineered for sovereignty, performance, and scale. Our infrastructure powers GPU-native workloads, multi-tenant control planes, and high-performance AI systems designed for the most demanding environments. We are not building a generic cloud. We are building purpose-built AI infrastructure — from powered land, to compute, to software. As we scale, we're building this organisation from the ground up. We're looking for people who'd rather build the playbook than inherit one - who are comfortable doing the work themselves as well as directing others, and who can adapt as fast as our strategy does. This is a startup model: attitude and adaptability matter more to us than years of experience or the size of the team you've previously managed.
What You'll Do: As Head of Engineering, you will lead Radiant's engineering organisation and be accountable for its execution, technical quality, reliability, and scalability. You'll lead software engineering, platform security engineering, and architecture: an organisation of 30-35 engineers today, growing to 150 to 200+ as Radiant expands internationally. You'll partner closely with Product, the Customer team, Infrastructure, SRE, Operations, the PMO, and the wider technology leadership team. This is a senior leadership role focused on building a high-performing engineering organisation capable of delivering and operating complex AI infrastructure at scale. You'll stay close to the work through design review.
Key Responsibilities:
- Hire and scale the engineering organisation, building a strong leadership layer across Engineering Managers, Principal Engineers, and senior technical leaders.
- Own engineering hiring, performance, leadership development, succession planning, and organisational health.
- Design and evolve the engineering organisation as the company scales across teams, sites, and regions.
- Own the engineering strategy, operating model, and execution in alignment with company and product objectives.
- Translate business priorities into clear technical plans, sequencing, investment decisions, and delivery commitments.
- Establish clear ownership, decision-making, and accountability across engineering teams.
- Drive predictable, high-quality delivery, identifying risk early and intervening where execution drifts.
- Ensure systems are designed and delivered to be production-ready, reliable, observable, maintainable, and supportable.
- Strengthen collaboration with infrastructure, SRE, and operations, including effective handover and incident learning.
- Set and uphold standards across architecture, engineering quality, security, scalability, and operational maturity.
- Own the roadmap jointly with Product: Product owns what is built, and you own how and when.
- Act as the senior escalation point for critical technical, architectural, and delivery decisions, brokering decisions between peers and escalating to the CTO when needed.
- Improve engineering maturity and processes while avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy or loss of delivery momentum.
- Represent engineering in executive and partner discussions, and join customer escalation reviews with the Customer team.
Your Profile:
- Significant experience leading and scaling engineering organisations of 20+ engineers through multiple stages of growth.
- Experience managing managers, with a strong track record of hiring and developing Engineering Managers, senior engineers, and technical leaders.
- Proven experience evolving a smaller engineering group into multiple teams with clear ownership, leadership, and consistent delivery.
- Experience designing organisational structures, team boundaries, and operating models for increasing scale and complexity.
- Demonstrated success improving delivery predictability, engineering quality, throughput, and organisational effectiveness.
- Strong technical background across modern software engineering, distributed systems, cloud platforms, or infrastructure-heavy products.
- Experience owning production systems where reliability, observability, scalability, and operational readiness are critical.
- Comfortable working closely with Product, Infrastructure, SRE, Operations, and Commercial teams.
- Experience operating across multiple teams, locations, or time zones.
- Able to communicate technical risk, trade-offs, and opportunity clearly at executive level.
- Experience with cloud or infrastructure platforms, scaled SaaS, AI/ML platforms, or infrastructure-heavy technology businesses is strongly preferred.
How You Work: You move fast and correct course quickly. You challenge openly, then commit. You address underperformance within weeks, with clear coaching and firm deadlines. You keep process light and standards high.
What You Bring:
- Engineering leadership: You build strong teams, strong leaders, and clear accountability.
- Execution: You create predictability and drive complex programmes through to completion.
- Technical judgement: You can guide architecture and challenge senior engineers without becoming a bottleneck.
- Systems thinking: You understand organisations, platforms, and operating models as interconnected systems.
- Operational mindset: You expect engineering output to be reliable, supportable, and production-ready.
- Organisational design: You know when structures, processes, or ownership models need to evolve.
- Calm leadership: You remain decisive under pressure and make clear trade-offs when required.
- Ownership: You take responsibility for engineering outcomes, organisational health, and long-term capability.
Qualities we look for: Set the standard: Every single day, you spot opportunities to constructively shake things up. Inspire the change: There's no blueprint for the future. You'll embrace challenges and change. You're real and you're true to yourself: We cherish and celebrate diversity so you'll feel right at home whoever you are and whoever you're talking to, you treat everyone the same.
Why should you join us? What sets us apart is our blend of modern technology, competitive benefits.
Head of Engineering employer: Radiant
Radiant is an exceptional employer for those looking to make a significant impact in the AI infrastructure space. With a startup culture that values adaptability and hands-on involvement, employees are encouraged to build and innovate rather than follow pre-existing protocols. The company offers unique opportunities for professional growth, a collaborative work environment, and the chance to set industry standards in safety and quality management while working on cutting-edge projects.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Head of Engineering
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Radiant or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Radiant.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Radiant.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Radiant that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Head of Engineering
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Radiant.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Radiant and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Radiant
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Radiant uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.