Ocho
Director of Engineering
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Director of Engineering
Fintech / Payments
Fully Remote
Up to £150k + 10% Bonus
At a Glance
- Director-level leadership role inside a rapidly scaling payments fintech.
- Lead and grow an engineering organisation of 14-20, including senior ICs and emerging leaders.
- Own technical strategy with a clear mandate to embed AI-driven practices across the engineering function.
- Fully remote with flexible hours.
- A rare opportunity to shape both team culture and product direction from the inside.
About the Company
This rapidly scaling fintech is building the next generation of secure, scalable payment infrastructure, with a clear ambition to lead on AI-powered merchant solutions. Their mission is to deliver merchant-first outcomes through empowered, autonomous engineering teams, and they are now investing significantly in AI to accelerate both product capability and engineering efficiency. The business values small, focused squads operating with curiosity and craft, and they are actively shaping what it means to build AI-native fintech at scale.
The Role
As Director of Engineering, you will lead and scale a modern engineering organisation while remaining genuinely close to the technology. This is a player-coach position: you will grow and mentor a team of 14-20 engineers, guide architecture and delivery practices, and drive both technical and cultural transformation. Critically, you will serve as the engineering leader responsible for the organisation's AI strategy, embedding AI tools, practices, and thinking across teams in a way that meaningfully accelerates delivery and product quality. You will partner closely with product and business stakeholders, own cross-team initiatives, and build the kind of high-trust, high-performance environment where great engineers do their best work.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the organisation's AI adoption strategy, identifying and embedding AI tooling, automation, and engineering workflows that accelerate velocity and quality.
- Define and drive technical direction across full-stack teams, including architecture decisions, standards, and long-term platform thinking.
- Hire, mentor, and grow high-performing engineers and emerging leaders, building clear progression paths at every level.
- Promote pragmatic, scalable solutions that balance engineering excellence with real business value.
- Champion a culture of continuous learning, psychological safety, and experimentation, with AI literacy as a core engineering competency.
- Improve agile and Lean practices to increase delivery velocity and reduce waste across squads.
- Drive adoption of DevOps, automation, observability, and AI-assisted developer tooling.
- Partner with product and business stakeholders on roadmap alignment and prioritisation.
- Lead complex cross-team initiatives and proactively remove blockers to delivery.
- Foster transparency, trust, and team empowerment at every level of the organisation.
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What You'll Need
Essential
- 5+ years in engineering leadership, with at least 1 year at Director level or above.
- Track record managing 10+ engineers and scaling high-performing, distributed teams.
- Demonstrable experience driving AI adoption within an engineering organisation, whether through tooling strategy, AI-assisted development, or AI-powered product features.
- Strong background in Java, C#, or other object-oriented languages; comfortable engaging at code and architecture level.
- Solid understanding of Lean or Kanban software delivery practices.
- Skilled communicator and coach, experienced leading cross-functional delivery in fast-paced environments.
- Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS or Azure) and modern DevOps practices.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related discipline.
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Nice to Have
- Experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated technology environments.
- Familiarity with LLM integrations, agentic workflows, or AI platform tooling (e.g. GitHub Copilot, Cursor, internal AI tooling).
- Prior exposure to building or scaling AI-native product features within a B2B SaaS or platform context.
Why Apply?
- Up to £150,000 base salary + 10% performance bonus.
- Fully remote with flexible working hours.
- A genuine mandate to lead AI strategy across the engineering function, not just a talking point.
- Technical ownership with real influence on team structure, architecture, and product direction.
- Smart, pragmatic engineers solving real-world payment infrastructure challenges.
- A culture that values curiosity, autonomy, and getting things right over moving fast and breaking things.
- Clear progression paths and a commitment to continuous learning at every level.
How to Apply
If you believe you meet the criteria for this role and are excited about the opportunity, please apply via the link. Alternatively, reach out to Phil Gamble directly for an informal chat via LinkedIn or WhatsApp.
About Phil Gamble
Phil Gamble has over 21 years of experience recruiting in global software engineering markets, delivering high-quality technical hires for scaling organisations. His relationship-driven approach ensures candidates are supported throughout the entire process.
What Candidates Say
- "Phil was by far the best recruiter I have ever dealt with… I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to my friends or colleagues."
- "I cannot recommend Phil and Ocho enough… Phil is a professional who does not treat his candidates as resources."
- "Phil has helped me find new roles more than once… he takes the time to understand what I'm looking for."
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
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