Senior Director of Engineering in Leeds

Senior Director of Engineering in Leeds

Leeds Full-Time 80000 - 100000 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead engineering teams to innovate AI-powered field service software and drive an AI-first culture.
  • Company: Join BigChange, a pioneering tech company transforming field service operations since 2013.
  • Benefits: Enjoy generous leave, private health insurance, and a relaxed office environment.
  • Other info: On-site role in Leeds with excellent career progression opportunities.
  • Why this job: Shape the future of technology while mentoring talented engineers in a dynamic setting.
  • Qualifications: Proven leadership in engineering, strategic depth, and a passion for AI integration.

The predicted salary is between 80000 - 100000 £ per year.

Overview

Big Change is at an inflection point.

As a pioneer of AI-powered field service software now serving over 250,000 users worldwide, we are expanding with Big Change Lightning — an AI intelligence layer deploying autonomous agents across field service operations.

We are headquartered in Leeds and part of the Simpro Group, transforming how trades and field service businesses operate since 2013.

Trusted by over 2,200 high-growth businesses, we have processed billions in invoiced work and scheduled tens of millions of jobs.

Big Change Lightning represents the next chapter: AI agents that act as virtual business partners, trainers, documentation specialists, and customer success functions — delivering headcount efficiency and economic impact previously not possible.

We are seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to lead the teams building what comes next and to embed an AI-first engineering culture across the full product suite.

The Role

This is a senior in-person leadership position based at our Leeds HQ.

You will lead the engineering organisation responsible for Big Change's full product suite — from the legacy monolith to our rapidly evolving microservices platform and mobile applications — while embedding an AI-First engineering culture that makes every engineer more capable, every delivery faster, and every customer outcome stronger.

You will report to executive leadership and be a key voice in shaping the technical future of one of the UK\'s most recognised field service technology businesses.

  • What You’ll Do
  • Team

Leadership: Build, mentor, and inspire high-performing engineering teams.

Drive a culture of ownership, craft, and continuous improvement from squad level to organisational level.

Develop engineering managers and create clear career pathways for individual contributors and leaders alike.

  • AI-First

Culture: Champion the integration of AI into every layer of how we build — from developer tooling and CI/CD intelligence to the AI agents at the heart of Big Change Lightning.

  • Engineering

Strategy: Partner with Product and the C-suite to shape the technical roadmap.

Balance velocity on new capabilities with architectural health across a hybrid legacy and modern stack.

Translate business goals into clear engineering priorities.

  • Platform

Evolution: Oversee the continued migration from AWS EC2 monolith toward AWS EKS microservices.

Make architectural decisions that protect reliability and security while enabling rapid innovation and scale.

  • Delivery

Excellence: Own engineering velocity, quality, and predictability.

Build processes and metrics that let teams move fast without creating future technical debt.

Maintain high engineering standards without creating bottlenecks.

  • Hiring & Talent: Attract and retain exceptional engineering talent in Leeds and beyond.

Make Big Change the kind of engineering organisation that people choose over alternatives, and be the reason great engineers want to stay.

  • What You’ll Bring
  • Proven track record leading high-performing engineering teams at scale — you\'ve built, grown, and developed engineering organisations, not just managed them.
  • Genuine conviction about AI in engineering — you\'ve moved teams from AI as curiosity to AI as a core capability multiplier.
  • Strategic technical depth: you can engage credibly with senior engineers on architecture without needing to be the smartest technologist in the room.
  • Experience with Saa S product companies: you understand how engineering decisions compound into product and commercial outcomes.
  • Comfort with complexity: you\'ve navigated hybrid environments combining legacy systems and modern platforms, and you\'ve managed that transition well.
  • Strong presence and communication: you lead in person, build trust quickly, and make hard decisions with clarity.
  • Collaborative by default: you partner with Product, Commercial, and the wider leadership team to create alignment, not just agreements.
  • Location: located in or able to commute to Leeds — this is an on-site leadership role.
  • What We Can Offer You
  • A generous annual leave entitlement plus a personal leave entitlement
  • Private Health Insurance
  • Employee Assistance Programme (24/7 confidential support on relationships, bereavement, finances)
  • Life Insurance
  • Company pension scheme, with an uncapped 5% employer contribution
  • Generous Parental Leave Program
  • Paid Volunteer Leave Days
  • Public Holiday Exchange Scheme
  • Talent Referral Programme – get rewarded for referring a friend to join our team!
  • Cyclescheme, a salary sacrifice to treat yourself to a bike & equipment
  • Home & Tech Scheme, a salary sacrifice to treat yourself to some new tech
  • A discounts and cash back scheme
  • Casual dress and relaxed office environment
  • Opportunities for career progression and development
  • Diverse training & internal networking opportunities across all of our product lines
  • Service recognition awards
  • Our Core Values
  • We Are One Team
  • We Are Customer Centric
  • We Are Growth Minded
  • We Are Accountable
  • We Celebrate Success

Simpro, Aro Flo, Big Change & Clock Shark are equal opportunity employers with a best-of-class onboarding program and supportive team environments.

This means that we want everyone to feel welcome and offer equal opportunities for everyone, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, or any other non-performance factor.

If you\'d like to join a fun and progressive organisation, where there are opportunities to develop your career, please apply now with your CV/Resume.

Please note: no agencies will be accepted in the recruitment of this role.

Any CVs provided to Simpro Software by agencies will be treated as a gift.

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Contact Details:

SwiftCruit Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Senior Director of Engineering in Leeds

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We think you need these skills to ace Senior Director of Engineering in Leeds

Team Leadership
Mentoring
AI Integration
Engineering Strategy
SaaS Product Experience
Architectural Decision-Making
Complexity Management

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 SwiftCruit.

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Brush Up on Your Coding Skills

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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.