Head of Engineering - European Union - Exponential Science

Description

About Exponential Science

Exponential Science operates at the intersection of blockchain, AI, data intelligence, and emerging deep-tech domains. We build institutional-grade platforms that transform complex, high-volume data into trusted insights for regulators, enterprises, and global partners.

Our engineering organisation is foundational to our mission: delivering secure, scalable, and auditable technology that meets the highest standards of reliability, compliance, and performance.

Role Overview

The Head of Engineering is a senior technical and people leader responsible for engineering architecture, execution excellence, and quality at scale. Acting as the second-in-command to the Engineering Director this role ensures that engineering strategy is translated into robust, production-ready systems.

You will oversee software engineering, data engineering, and quality functions, while remaining deeply involved in system architecture and technical decision-making.

This role requires a leader who combines hands-on architectural and coding depth with strong organisational leadership, capable of guiding teams through complexity, scale, and rapid growth.

Key Responsibilities

1. Architecture & Technical Leadership

• Own and evolve the end-to-end system architecture across platforms, products, and data pipelines.
• Ensure architectural decisions support scalability, security, performance, interoperability, and regulatory readiness.
• Lead architecture reviews, technical design approvals, and major technology trade-off decisions.
• Drive best practices in cloud-native, distributed systems, APIs, and data-intensive architectures.

2. Software Engineering Leadership & Hands-on Coding

• Oversee multiple software engineering teams across backend, platform, and integration layers.
• Ensure consistent engineering standards, coding practices, and delivery discipline.
• Partner with Product, Security, and Compliance teams to ensure feature delivery aligns with technical and regulatory constraints.
• Support technical leaders in execution, planning, and people development.

3. Data Engineering & Platform Excellence

• Lead the design and operation of large-scale data ingestion, processing, and analytics pipelines.
• Ensure data platforms are reliable, observable, and auditable, supporting real-time and batch workloads.
• Oversee data quality, lineage, governance, and performance optimisation.
• Collaborate closely with AI / analytics teams to enable advanced modelling and insights.

4. Quality Engineering & Operational Excellence

• Own the quality strategy across software and data platforms.
• Establish and enforce automated testing, CI/CD quality gates, and release governance.
• Ensure high standards of availability, resilience, and incident management.
• Drive continuous improvement in engineering productivity, reliability, and operational maturity.

5. People & Organisation Leadership

• Act as a trusted leader and mentor to senior engineers and managers.
• Support hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career development across engineering functions.
• Help scale the organisation with clear roles, ownership models, and accountability.
• Foster a culture of engineering excellence, collaboration, and ownership.

6. Strategic & Executive Contribution

• Partner with the CTO and Engineering Director on technology strategy, roadmap planning, and investment decisions.
• Support technical due diligence with partners, clients, and investors.
• Represent engineering in cross-functional and external forums when required.
• Ensure engineering execution aligns with business priorities and long-term vision.

Required Experience & Qualifications

Technical & Leadership Background

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, including significant time in architecture and senior leadership roles.
• Proven experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering organisations (software, data, quality).
• Strong hands-on background in system and platform architecture.

Core Technical Expertise

• Software Engineering: modern backend systems, APIs, microservices, distributed systems.
• Data Engineering: high-volume data pipelines, streaming/batch processing, analytics platforms.
• Cloud & Infrastructure: cloud-native architectures (AWS/GCP/Azure), containerisation, CI/CD.
• Quality Engineering: test automation strategies, reliability engineering, release governance.

Deep-Tech / Regulated Environment Experience (Strong Advantage)

• Experience in blockchain, AI/ML platforms, fintech, data intelligence, or regulated industries.
• Understanding of security, privacy, auditability, and compliance-driven engineering.

Leadership & Personal Attributes

• Architect-level thinker with pragmatic execution mindset.
• Calm, structured decision-maker in complex, high-stakes environments.
• Strong communicator able to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Natural mentor and people leader who builds trust and accountability.
• Comfortable operating as #2 engineering leader, enabling and amplifying the Director.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to shape the digital identity of a disruptive product.
• Work in close partnership with the marketing and leadership team.
• Dynamic, fast-paced environment with room for growth and creativity.
• Competitive compensation and benefits package.