Director of Quality Innovation (Permanent) in London

LondonCTO General – CTO General /Employee - Permanent /HybridOur StoryHello there. We started our journey back in 2005, building the first ever peer-to-peer lending company. Fast forward to 2020 and we launched Zopa Bank. A bank that listens to what our customers don't like about finance and does the opposite. We're redefining what it feels like to work in finance. Our vision for a new era of banking puts people front and centre — we've built a business that empowers everyone to aim high, every day, to move finance forward. Follow us on Instagram @zopalifeAs a Director of Engineering, you'll lead an established engineering organisation responsible for one of our key business areas, with the autonomy and accountability to make a significant impact on how engineering performs at Zopa. You'll have the scope to influence significant technical and architectural decisions, improve engineering effectiveness and shape how we build and operate technology. Our Directors are expected to raise the level of engineering across Zopa, working closely with Product, Commercial and Technology leaders to turn engineering improvements into better business outcomes. You'll bring strong people leadership, technical credibility and a genuinely data-led approach to understanding what's working and where we can improve, while helping us push further in areas such as AI-enabled engineering. This is an opportunity for an experienced engineering leader to take real ownership, drive substantial change and clearly see the results of the decisions they make. As a highly collaborative role, you'll attend our Canary Wharf office 3 days per week What you'll do: Lead Engineering Strategy & Drive Meaningful Change: Set and lead the engineering strategy for your area, identifying the biggest opportunities to improve technology, people and ways of working. Take ownership of moving the organisation from its current state towards a clear future state, building stakeholder buy-in and delivering measurable progress. Build a High-Performing Engineering Organisation: Lead a sizeable engineering organisation through Engineering Managers, setting a high bar for people leadership and engineering performance. Build and develop high-performing teams through effective hiring, performance management and people practices. Identify organisational challenges and opportunities, including how teams are structured and how engineering capacity is used most effectively. Improve Engineering Effectiveness Through Data & AI:Identify and deliver improvements that make engineers and engineering teams more effective across people, technology and process. Use meaningful engineering metrics to identify opportunities, guide decisions and demonstrate whether changes are delivering the intended impact. Drive practical adoption and experimentation with AI, focusing on how it changes engineering effectiveness rather than simply introducing new tools. Share meaningful evidence of engineering performance with teams and stakeholders to inform decisions and drive continuous improvement. Work effectively with engineering, architecture, platform and other technology teams to manage dependencies and deliver change. Partner Across the Business & Raise the Engineering Bar: Build strong partnerships with Product and Commercial leaders, creating shared ownership of outcomes rather than operating in functional silos. Influence senior stakeholders, navigate demanding conversations and build support for significant engineering change. Contribute beyond your immediate organisation, helping raise the level of engineering across Zopa. Be Curious, Adaptable & Improvement-Focused: Ask the right questions, challenge existing approaches and continually look for opportunities to make engineering better. Use Data to Make Better Decisions: Take a genuinely data-led approach, using meaningful metrics to understand engineering performance and identify where improvement is needed. Communicate engineering effectiveness in a way that gives teams and senior stakeholders a clear view of progress and outcomes. Influence with High EQ & Low Ego: Build trusted relationships across Engineering, Product, Commercial and the wider organisation. Balance long-term thinking with visible progress, demonstrating impact while building towards larger-scale change. You're an experienced engineering leader who has led sizeable teams and knows how to build a high-performing organisation through strong Engineering Managers, effective hiring, performance management and people leadership. You can demonstrate meaningful improvements to engineering effectiveness across people, technology and ways of working. You use data and metrics to identify opportunities, make decisions and understand whether your changes are having the intended impact. You're actively exploring how AI can improve engineering effectiveness and can talk practically about what you've tried, what worked, what didn't and what you learned. At Zopa we value flexible ways of working. We value face-to-face collaboration and a good work-life balance. This hybrid role requires you to come to our London office 2-3 days a week. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and backgrounds leads to better products for our customers and a unique company culture for our people. As a proud partner of Jobs 2030, we're committed to building AI fluency across our workforce, and we expect Zopians to use AI as part of how they do their jobs. Your Talent Partner will let you know what's expected at each stage.