Director of engineering - Accounts

Seccl is the Octopus-owned embedded investment platform that is on a mission to help more people invest and invest well. We are B-Corp certified with product-market fit, early traction and potential to transform an outdated industry. We’ve been growing fast and will scale even faster in the coming years.

The role involves leading the long-term technical strategy, organisational design and engineering excellence for the Accounts domain, which is the foundation of every investor journey on Seccl. Responsibilities include:

• Providing collaborative leadership across architecture, risk, delivery and team growth in one of Seccl’s most business-critical and regulated domains.
• Reporting directly to the CTO and partnering closely with the Group Product Manager for Accounts in a dual-leadership model.
• Guiding the technical direction for 46 squads, ensuring scalable architecture, engineering quality and reliable delivery.
• Developing and enabling Engineering Managers, embedding a culture of Ownership and shared accountability through a build it, run it approach.
• Operating within a domain with deep regulatory responsibility, technical complexity and a broad product footprint spanning backend services, event-driven flows, APIs and customer-facing UI.

In 12-18 months, you’ll have:

• Delivered a clear multi-year Accounts technical roadmap aligned to product and compliance priorities.
• Improved DORA and reliability metrics, reducing operational risk.
• Strengthened the Engineering Manager, Staff and Principal engineering bench with clear succession depth.
• Scaled organisational design to sustain flow, autonomy and effective delivery as Seccl grows.

On a typical day you will:

• Set and communicate the technical vision and strategy for the Accounts tribe, shaping direction for the longer term ahead.
• Guide architectural decisions that ensure scalability, resilience and compliance.
• Work with Staff and Principal Engineers to define and evolve architectural guardrails, patterns and platform capabilities.
• Partner with the Group Product Manager to align technical and product priorities for maximum customer impact.
• Lead and coach Engineering Managers, enabling their growth and technical leadership.
• Advocate best practices and frameworks (e.g., AWS Well-Architected Framework) across squads.
• Ensure operational excellence and reliability in delivery, embedding a build it, run it culture.
• Design, refine and evolve the organisational structure of the Accounts tribe to ensure long-term flow, autonomy and Ownership.
• Build succession plans, strengthen leadership pipelines and uplift engineering management capability.
• Influence company-wide engineering standards, frameworks and technical strategy as part of the Engineering Leadership Team.
• Drive safe, measurable adoption of AI-assisted engineering with appropriate governance for IP, security and compliance.
• Promote continuous improvement in processes, tooling and engineering culture.
• Partner with Compliance, Risk, Security and Operations to embed robust engineering governance, technical controls and audit readiness.
• Shape and manage cloud spend, operational cost-to-serve and vendor relationships across the Accounts domain.

This role is for you if you:

• Have experience leading multiple engineering squads in a high-growth, cloud-native environment.
• Have experience leading 20-40+ engineers through managers, Staff engineers and senior individual contributors.
• Have owned multi-year technical and organisational strategies, ideally within regulated or high-integrity domains.
• Understand AWS/serverless architecture and modern engineering practices.
• Enjoy shaping operating models, delivery frameworks and engineering cultures.
• Can operate across horizons: from long-term architectural direction to diving into technical detail when needed.
• Build strong partnerships across product and engineering, influencing at all levels.
• Have a track record of improving delivery processes and driving operational efficiencies.
• Are comfortable navigating ambiguity and rapid growth, using data to guide decisions.

This role isn’t for you if you:

• You’ve never led engineering teams or scaled technical organisations.
• You lack experience in cloud-native architectures or modern engineering practices.
• You prefer highly prescriptive, top-down environments rather than autonomy.
• You find fast-changing or ambiguous environments challenging.

What’s in it for you:

• A salary between £115,000 and £130,000 dependent on experience + reviewed annually.
• 27 days holiday + bank holidays (some can be flexible) + day off on your birthday + three days (full time) per year for Dependant leave.
• Two volunteering days per year.
• Option to work abroad for up to six weeks a year.
• Secclbrate – our recognition programme that offers a mix of flexible rewards including extra pay, additional holiday and increased learning budget.
• Length of service award one month paid sabbatical at eight years.
• 6% employer pension contribution, and life assurance.
• Private medical insurance with AXA Health.
• Enhanced Parental leave.
• MacBook and up to £500 home office set up budget.
• £750 per person learning budget.
• Health and wellbeing initiatives including free therapy via Wellness Cloud, mental health support via Headspace.
• Strong financial wellbeing focus including access to Octopus Money, Octopus Share Incentive Plan and will writing offering via Octopus Legacy.
• Perkbox Flexi-points giving you a range of discounts and perks including free weekly coffee, gym and retail discounts.
• Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work and Octopus Electric Vehicle Leasing.

Our culture:

We’re proud to put people first, creating a culture where we truly listen to what matters most to them. Our transparent and inclusive environment encourages diversity of thought, challenge and experimentation.

Interview process:

Interviewing is a two-way thing, and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you. Our interviews are conversational, so come with questions and be curious. We will close this role once we have enough applications for the next stage. Please submit your application as soon as possible to make sure you don’t miss out and you should expect to hear back from us within one to two weeks of applying.

Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive company of awesome people, with unique skills, passions and experiences. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, or veteran, neurodiversity or disability status. If this sounds like your kind of thing, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t tick every box. We’d love to hear from you!