Head of Engineering in London

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About Us

Every business needs to know who they're really working with whether it's suppliers, investors, partners, or third parties. At Xapien, we're reinventing how organisations do that, combining speed, scale and accuracy with cutting-edge AI. Since 2018, we've grown from a deep-tech startup to a global player in AI-driven due diligence and risk intelligence. 2024 was a landmark year as we closed a $10M Series A, earned recognition in the Chartis RiskTech100® and Everest Group's Leading 50™, and expanded our products, markets and customer base. 2025 was even bigger: With new regulations, rising compliance pressure and growing reputation risks, organisations everywhere are demanding smarter, faster ways to work and they're turning to us. Customers worldwide from global law firms and private banks to universities and nonprofits rely on Xapien to turn days of manual research into trusted insights, delivered in minutes. Customers in a diverse range of industries, with particular growth in wealth management, financial services and supply chain onboarding. Demand accelerating beyond our UK headquarters, across multiple continents with new customers in the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania.

Why this is an exciting time to join

This isn't just another job role; it's an opportunity to shape the future of the due diligence industry with a market-leading product trusted by global organisations. Whether you're in marketing, communications, sales, or finance, you'll play a critical role in driving growth, building credibility, and defining how we connect our product to a rapidly evolving market. We're scaling fast with more customers, more releases, and bigger regulatory and market challenges. Expectations are rising, due diligence now means real-time insight, delivered efficiently and with impact. You won't just be executing campaigns, closing deals, or managing numbers, you'll be influencing strategy, optimising processes, and helping position a brand that's setting the new standard for trust and transparency. For people who love learning, innovating, and making an impact that matters now is the moment to be a part of Xapien.

Role Overview

In the run-up to securing Series B funding, Xapien is hiring a Head of Engineering to build and lead a high‑performing, scalable engineering organisation. Reporting to Shaun O'Mahony, Co‑Founder and CTPO, you'll own the systems, practices, and culture that enable a ~35‑person (and growing) product and engineering organisation to deliver reliably, iterate quickly, and partner effectively across the business. You'll lead the engineering organisation end‑to‑end: driving delivery execution, scaling the team, building operational maturity, and championing AI‑augmented development practices. You will operate at multiple levels – coaching managers and ICs, owning incident response, and setting the operational direction for Xapien's engineering organisation. The CTPO retains product and technical vision; you make it happen. This is a rare opportunity to both build the foundations of a scaling engineering org and directly influence the growth trajectory of an AI‑native company.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive Sustainable, Agile Delivery: Establish lightweight, agile practices that support fast iterations, predictable delivery, and continuous improvement. Build delivery management processes (planning, estimation, forecasting) that give product and commercial teams confidence in timelines. Own QA and testing practices to ensure quality keeps pace with rapid delivery cycles – including release gating through alpha/beta environments, feature flags, and automated regression testing. Implement engineering metrics and dashboards (e.g. DORA metrics) that provide visibility into delivery velocity, deployment frequency, change failure rates, and team health – reinforcing Xapien's identity as a data‑driven organisation.
• Scale the Engineering Organisation: Grow the team thoughtfully, hiring for both technical excellence and collaborative mindset. Define structures and roles (including QA and delivery management functions) that enable effective cross‑functional collaboration. Create career pathways and coaching frameworks that develop strong engineers and future leaders. Foster a culture of shared ownership of product outcomes, not just technical deliverables. Develop a workforce strategy that accounts for AI‑augmented development – understanding where agentic tooling can amplify output and where human judgement is essential, to build a right‑sized, cost‑effective engineering organisation.
• Operational & Technical Leadership: Drive and govern platform scalability, reliability, and maintainability – working with strong technical leads who own architectural decisions within a domain‑driven design structure. Establish engineering‑wide standards for code quality, review processes, and technical governance. Build observability, incident management, and on‑call practices that scale with team growth and deployment frequency. Embed DevOps, MLOps, security, and compliance practices into day‑to‑day workflows. Balance technical debt with feature delivery needs, making trade‑offs transparent to the business.
• Cross‑Functional Partnership: Collaborate with product leadership to translate business priorities into technical roadmaps and realistic delivery commitments. Partner with commercial teams to align engineering focus with commercial drivers and business objectives. Partner with compliance, security, and data protection stakeholders to ensure engineering practices meet regulatory requirements – particularly important given Xapien's role in handling sensitive due diligence data. Facilitate clear communication between technical and non‑technical stakeholders, contributing to company‑wide planning.

What We're Looking For

• Delivery Leadership: 5+ years leading multiple cross‑functional engineering teams through significant growth, including experience managing managers and scaling delivery, QA, and testing functions.
• Agile Collaboration: Proven experience embedding agile practices, fast iterations, and effective QA/testing processes.
• Scaling Experience: Built or scaled engineering orgs during high‑growth early‑stage phases (Series A/B).
• Technical Credibility: Strong background in cloud‑native architectures, distributed systems, and modern delivery practices (CI/CD, automated testing, observability). Experience with cloud cost management and infrastructure optimisation.
• Operational Maturity: Experience building observability, on‑call rotations, and incident management practices as engineering organisations scale – reducing MTTR and increasing deployment confidence.
• Range & Flexibility: Comfortable operating at multiple levels – from directly managing ICs and leading incident response to defining long‑term operational strategy and scaling the organisation.
• Leadership Qualities: Systems thinker, excellent communicator, strong people developer, and commercially minded.
• Manager of Managers: Proven ability to build, coach, and empower engineering managers to lead their own teams effectively.
• Architectural Judgement: Ability to evaluate and challenge technical decisions without needing to own every design – ensuring the right level of rigour as systems scale.
• Bonus: Familiarity with AI/ML technologies and their operational requirements, including experience with AI‑augmented development workflows.

Success in This Role Looks Like

• Within 12 months: Agile delivery practices in place, with predictable velocity and clear quality standards. QA, testing, and delivery management embedded as integral parts of the engineering function. Effective collaboration processes established with product and commercial teams. Scalable management structures and career pathways defined. Engineering career framework published and actively used for development conversations. Incident management and observability practices established – clear SLAs, fast detection and resolution.
• Within 24 months: A self‑sustaining, high‑performing engineering organisation that delivers at speed and scale. Product and commercial teams have high confidence in engineering reliability and quality. The platform supports growth with minimal operational overhead and measurably improving incident response times. Strong engineering culture – with clear career progression, coaching, and an environment that attracts and retains top talent.

Why This Role Matters

At Xapien, engineering isn't just about building features, it's about creating the technical foundation that enables the entire business to scale. As Head of Engineering, you'll be instrumental in ensuring that our technical capabilities grow in step with our business ambitions, while building a team and culture that can sustain high performance over the long term. This is an opportunity to shape the organisational architecture and operational backbone of a rapidly growing AI company, working alongside a technical co‑founder who retains the product and technical vision – and needs a partner who can turn that vision into reliable, scalable execution.

Here's our promise to you

• We are going to work with you – to build a rewarding and fulfilling career with the opportunities, challenges and resources you need to do your best work.
• We succeed together – you will own a meaningful part of the business through our employee shares & equity programme.
• Private health insurance to keep you in tip‑top condition.
• Life Insurance – let's hope nobody ever needs this!
• Unlimited holidays – yes, it really is uncapped – take the time you need, when you need it.
• Everyone is learning, developing and challenging themselves so we have a £1k professional development fund per year if you want to learn new skills, even new things outside of work.
• Most importantly of all, we will work with you, to help you realise your fullest potential, always.