Director of Engineering in London

Vista Tech plays a vital role in the Vista group operations by delivering and accelerating comprehensive technology solutions across all brands. Vista’s end-to-end and click-to-flight solutions offer the industry's only comprehensive flight booking platform, seamlessly integrating global operations, and leveraging AI and machine learning to optimize pricing and fleet movement.

A career at Vista means stepping into an environment where you’re trusted with real autonomy and responsibility from day one. Whether you’re keeping our aircraft airworthy, flying our clients across the globe, or working in one of our corporate teams, you’ll move fast, deliver impact quickly, and grow through hands-on learning and close collaboration within a supportive global community. You’ll play an active role in shaping a transforming organization by improving processes, challenging norms, and driving meaningful change. Throughout, you’ll take pride in making the impossible possible for a worldwide client base.

Your Responsibilities:

• We are looking for an experienced and versatile Director of Engineering to be part of our technology department and contribute to the creation of the next generation of our bespoke software platform.
• The successful candidate will work closely with our business units and the wider tech team to deliver efficient digital processes for a global 24x7 operation.
• Lead and develop high-performing engineering teams that consistently deliver value with strong throughput.
• Oversee and continuously improve the team’s operational processes, ensuring efficiency and predictability.
• Manage the team’s budget, including forecasting, allocation, and cost optimization.
• Drive hiring efforts, ensure effective onboarding, and implement retention strategies to minimize attrition.
• Ensure timely, high-quality delivery of all team commitments, including projects, enhancements, and operational work.
• Own the performance, reliability, and scalability of the systems under the team’s responsibility.
• Oversee Level 3 support activities, ensuring timely resolution of complex issues and strong partnership with support teams.
• Foster a positive, engaging team culture that promotes motivation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Partner with engineers to design and prepare technical solutions for upcoming initiatives and projects.
• Manage project execution end-to-end, maintaining delivery flow, removing blockers, and ensuring alignment with stakeholders.
• Track and manage team objectives across departmental and project dimensions, ensuring progress toward defined targets.
• Maintain strong communication across teams, stakeholders, and leadership, ensuring clarity, alignment, and transparency.

Required Skills, Qualifications, And Experience:

• 10+ years of experience in the Software Engineering space, including 3-5 years of engineering management experience.
• Proven track record leading multi-team engineering organizations (15 to 20 engineers).
• Demonstrated success managing Engineering Managers, Team Leads and ICs.
• Experience scaling engineering teams, processes, and systems in complex environments.
• Deep experience overseeing large-scale distributed systems, high-availability platforms, and mission-critical services.
• Strong background in pricing engines, wholesale systems or revenue management—either directly or through adjacent domains with similar complexity.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and/or Abilities:

• Ability to partner with architects and senior engineers to shape long-term technical strategy and system evolution.
• Fluency in SQL (MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (DocumentDB, DynamoDB).
• Good understanding of Scrum, Agile development & DevOps.
• Good understanding of DDD, BDD, TDD and Design Patterns.
• Deep understanding of cloud-native architectures and scalable system design.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to promote engineering best practices.
• Cloud-agnostic mindset with adaptability to evolving technologies.
• Exceptional attention to details.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.