Just Group plc
Distinguished Engineer
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Distinguished Engineer
Location: London - hybrid 50%
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time 35 hours
Purpose of the Role
The Distinguished Engineer is a senior group-wide technical leadership role accountable for shaping how engineering is practiced across Just Group.
The role defines and governs the standards, guardrails, tooling strategy and AI-assisted engineering practices that enable all engineering teams to deliver secure, reliable, scalable and high-quality technology.
Unlike Lead Engineer roles, which primarily support delivery within specific teams or value streams, this role operates across domains to set direction, raise engineering maturity, influence senior stakeholders and ensure consistent adoption of modern engineering practices at Group level.
About Just
We help people achieve a better later life. That’s our purpose and it’s the reason we exist. We are a fast-growing company helping customers enjoy the retirement they deserve. We do this through a variety of market leading, award-winning products and services, delivered by a diverse team of over 1,400 purpose-led colleagues who genuinely put the customer at the heart of everything we do.
This is a brilliant time to join our business. We are on an exciting growth journey to become the UK’s most loved retirement expert.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and evolve the Group Engineering strategy, roadmap and operating model with Engineering, Architecture and Technology leadership.
- Set the technical direction for engineering practice across Just Group, ensuring teams work within consistent standards while retaining appropriate local autonomy.
- Act as a senior technical authority for cross-cutting engineering decisions, patterns and trade-offs that affect multiple domains or platforms.
- Influence Heads of Engineering, Engineering Managers, Lead Engineers and senior stakeholders to raise engineering maturity and improve delivery confidence across the Group.
- Own and maintain Group Engineering standards, policies, patterns and technical guardrails across software delivery, secure engineering, DevOps, testing, observability and operational readiness.
- Partner with Architecture, Information Security, Risk and Technology leadership to ensure engineering practices are aligned to governance, security, audit and regulatory expectations.
- Provide proportionate technical assurance for significant engineering approaches, tooling choices and delivery practices without becoming a bottleneck to delivery.
- Establish clear expectations for how standards are adopted, evidenced and measured across federated engineering teams.
- Own the Group approach to AI-assisted software delivery, including standards, practices and guardrails.
- Lead adoption of AI-first approaches across requirements refinement, specification-driven development, testing, code generation and engineering knowledge management.
- Ensure AI-assisted engineering remains governed, auditable and accountable to human engineers and leaders.
- Operate across Just Group rather than within a single delivery team, product area or value stream.
- Represent Group Engineering in senior technical, governance and delivery forums where enterprise-wide engineering judgement is required.
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Examples of Key Activities
- Define and maintain Group Engineering standards, patterns, guardrails and practical adoption guidance.
- Lead working sessions, communities of practice and technical forums to support adoption of modern engineering practices.
- Assess emerging AI-assisted engineering tools, agents and developer productivity capabilities, translating them into safe and practical delivery guidance.
- Partner with Architecture, Information Security, Risk and Technology leadership to align engineering practices with governance and audit expectations.
- Coach Heads of Engineering, Engineering Managers, Lead Engineers and senior engineers on engineering standards, quality, delivery confidence and responsible innovation.
- Identify systemic engineering risks or capability gaps and coordinate Group-wide improvement actions.
- Create reusable artefacts, reference implementations, playbooks and practical guidance that can be applied consistently across multiple domains.
- Establish engineering metrics that track quality, productivity, adoption and continuous improvement.
What We're Looking For
- Extensive experience in software engineering leadership, with a track record of shaping engineering practices, standards and technical direction across multiple teams, platforms or domains.
- Proven ability to define, govern and embed engineering standards, guardrails, tooling and operating models in complex, large-scale or federated technology environments.
- Deep expertise in modern software engineering practices, including cloud-native development, DevOps, CI/CD, test automation, observability, secure-by-design engineering and operational resilience.
- Demonstrated success influencing senior leaders across engineering, architecture, security, delivery and business functions to drive consistent outcomes and adoption of strategic initiatives.
- Ability to translate technical vision into clear business value, measurable outcomes and practical implementation approaches.
- Recognised technical authority with the judgement and credibility to guide enterprise-wide engineering decisions while empowering teams to retain delivery ownership and accountability.
- Experience leading engineering strategy, developer experience improvements, productivity initiatives, communities of practice and cross-team enablement activities.
- Strong understanding of AI-assisted engineering, developer tooling, engineering effectiveness and the responsible adoption of emerging technologies.
- Excellent communication, coaching and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience; experience within a regulated environment, such as financial services, is advantageous.
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Nice to Have
- Degree-level education or equivalent professional experience, ideally in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related discipline.
- Experience introducing AI-assisted engineering capabilities, developer productivity tooling or engineering standards across a federated technology environment.
- Experience working within a regulated industry, such as financial services.
Our Behaviours
At Just you’ll have the opportunity to develop your career, whilst making a difference to the lives of those around you. You’ll be part of a company with a strong and distinctive culture - we’re ambitious, curious and collaborative – and every decision we make centres around being Just and delivering the best outcomes for our customers.
What’s in it for you
- A competitive salary, pension scheme and life assurance
- 25 days annual leave plus an additional day on us for your birthday
- Private medical cover and income protection, just in case
- A generous and highly achievable bonus scheme
- Opportunities to progress your career in-role and within the company
- Free access to the Headspace app, 24/7 employee assistance helpline and trained physical and mental health first aiders
- A variety of employee funded benefits available via our online benefits portal
- Plus, several additional purchase options available for you and your loved ones
Explore our full range of benefits on our dedicated benefits page.
Belonging at Just
Valuing diversity of thought and fostering a sense of belonging is critical to our business success, driving innovation and balanced decision making. Our work on DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) aims to deliver a brilliant employee experience underpinned by a sense of belonging, where our people feel proud to work at Just.
We remain committed to our publicly disclosed HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter and Race at Work Charter targets and support a wide range of employee network and events, championing issues including intergenerational working, social mobility and neurodiversity.
Application details
Please submit your CV using the 'apply now’ button. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted regarding next steps which may include an initial phone interview and in-person assessment.
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