VP Engineering in Bristol

We're building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience. We specialise in turning advances in sensing, AI, and communications into operational capability for the edge, where connectivity may be degraded or denied. Our work focuses on accelerating the deployment of technology, improving decision-making for frontline teams, and protecting people and critical assets in demanding environments.

Rowden is looking for a VP Engineering to lead and strengthen the engineering discipline across the company as we scale into the next phase of growth. This is a critical leadership role at an inflection point for the business. Rowden has grown rapidly into one of the fastest growing engineering companies in Europe, delivering mission-critical systems across defence and national resilience. The VP Engineering exists to ensure that scale does not dilute engineering quality, standards, culture or pace.

This role owns the engineering function as a discipline: the people, capabilities, standards, practices and technical calibration that underpin everything Rowden builds. You will lead an engineering team that works across FPGA, RF, embedded systems, distributed software, ML and applications engineering. The breadth is substantial, so we don’t expect you to be the deepest expert in every domain – it is about exercising strong technical judgement, recognising quality, building trust with technical leaders, and creating an engineering function that consistently performs at a high bar.

This role will suit someone who is technically credible, operationally grounded, comfortable making hard decisions, and motivated by building a high-performance engineering organisation in a demanding, mission-led environment.

Key areas of responsibility:

• Engineering leadership and standards: Own the overall engineering discipline across Rowden, including standards, practices, technical quality and engineering culture. Establish and reinforce consistent engineering expectations across engineering teams, including code quality, review practices, testing, design documentation, security and technical debt management. Ensure engineering quality remains high as the business scales rapidly across multiple business lines.
• Engineering capability and organisational growth: Lead the Chief Engineers and engineering leadership community, strengthening technical leadership capability throughout the organisation. Own the engineering talent pipeline end-to-end, including hiring strategy, progression, succession planning and performance management. Maintain a high performance and high trust engineering culture.
• Technical judgement and engineering execution: Provide technical leadership and judgement across a broad range of engineering disciplines. Contribute to engineering delivery through regular engagement with technical discussions, design reviews, integration activity, manufacturing sessions and customer trials. Recognise technical, delivery and organisational risks early and intervene appropriately.
• Cross-functional leadership: Lead through line management and influence, within a hybrid reporting model spanning multiple business lines and technical domains. Work closely with the CEO, COO, Business Line Leads, Chief Architect, VP Platforms and VP Product to strengthen engineering execution across the company.

What success looks like:

• Earned the trust of engineers and technical leaders across the business through sound judgement, transparency and practical support.
• Established regular visibility of key engineering risks, capability gaps, resourcing constraints and technical debt across the organisation.
• Reinforced a clear and consistent engineering quality bar across delivery, technical standards, ownership and accountability.
• Improved consistency across engineering practices including code quality, testing, documentation, security and technical review processes.
• Helped scale the engineering organisation without losing technical depth, delivery effectiveness or Rowden’s pragmatic engineering culture.

Key skills, experience and behaviours:

• Experience leading complex engineering organisations through growth, increasing scale and organisational complexity.
• Strong engineering judgement and the ability to assess technical quality, risk and trade-offs across disciplines beyond your own specialism.
• Broad technical fluency across areas such as software, distributed systems, embedded systems, RF, FPGA, hardware or ML-driven systems.
• A hands-on leadership style that stays close to engineering work, technical discussions and delivery realities without becoming a bottleneck.

What matters in this role:

• You should care deeply about the engineering craft, not just the mechanics of managing teams.
• You should balance ambition with pragmatism, understanding how to continuously improve engineering standards while operating within real delivery, commercial and operational constraints.
• You should value visibility, collaboration and in-person engagement, and be committed to working from Rowden’s Bristol HQ at least three days per week.

Working at Rowden:

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are! We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can.