As our VP of Engineering, you will set our technical direction, manage our technology stack and ensure our team is performing to the highest standards as we grow, expand our team, products and markets.   This role works closely with the CPO, CEO and COO to maintain our highly collaborative culture. You line manage our team of Lead Engineers, being accountable for the quality of work in delivering our technical solution to B2B2C clients. You will report into the CPO.

This position is based in Leeds or remotely in the UK.

The Role
In this role, you will define, evolve and lead the delivery of our technology vision and strategy across the whole organisation. You will have architectural ownership (including tech stack, budget and roadmap), focusing on improving our current software and processes as well as taking forward looking decisions beyond Series A, helping us to scale and diversify. This role can defend our technology and infrastructure in front of enterprise clients, our investors and our board.  You will take a hands-on approach to setting the highest standards for best practises in engineering – both in respect of the quality of implementation and in the definition of processes, standards and practises in engineering.

You need to be an experienced collaborator, working effectively with the whole business, and a great thought-partner to our CPO, to jointly manage our strategic direction and foster close relationships between our wider product and technology teams to deliver the highest quality from discovery, delivery and product support.

Your remit will include ensuring we have an efficient, secure and scalable infrastructure and software development processes that deliver high quality products for our end users (children and families) and clients (hospitals, clinicians, pharmaceutical, biotech and Clinical Research Organisations).

You will foster a healthy, high-performing engineering culture,  empowering teams and individuals through coaching and leadership rooted in your significant experience of best practises. You will define and monitor KPIs for technical performance and drive accountabilities within the tech team to ensure a consistent focus on execution and delivery of quality products.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and optimisation  of the technology architecture and stack, ensuring it is well-suited to meet current demands and future scaling challenges
• Direct, mentor and coach a team of Lead Engineers, building a culture of high performance and accountability
• Ensure compliance with security regulations through application of principles of Security and Privacy by Design
• Lead on technical strategy – being accountable for the technical implementation of OKRs, business goals and requirements for the short and long term aims of Little Journey
• Support tactical delivery of software development projects by supervising requirements, goals and timelines
• Maintain high standards in technical delivery, implementing effective software development processes and robust infrastructure that meet client needs
• Foster a culture of innovation within the engineering team
• Define and monitor key performance indicators and manage OKR initiatives to ensure accountability and success
• Define excellence in engineering throughout the teams:  you regularly check in on contributions, demonstrate strong opinions about system design and architecture, and implement robust policies and procedures around best practises and high standards
• Responsible for the implementation of secure development and deployment practices in line with the requirements and expectations of Little Journey's customers, regulators and industry best practice

Measuring Success
First 3 months: successfully implement cross functional team culture, breaking down silos, facilitate interaction between tech and product. This is in motion already and you will enable the team to be successful.

6 months: Reflect the needs of the content side of the company, delivering the user experience of the content team. Tools and automation and support. We have a SaaS infrastructure and architecture. Take ownership of productization of platform, expert from the tech side, what does the SaaS platform look like and how is it architected (incl. security, content management, user management) hand in hand with the content solution

12 months: You have successfully deployed a SaaS platform that is delivering services to new clinical trials and our healthcare customers. Everything done in month 3 – 6 – 9 is running effectively, within out SLA’s/ Operational costs have been significantly reduced.

Requirements

Must haves:

• Experience as a Director, Vice-Principal or Head of Engineering or in a similar senior-level position at at least one fast growing company, going through Series A and B growth
• Extensive experience with full-stack web and mobile application technologies: Little Journey’s tech stack comprises Typescript and React, with legacy applications built of .NET/C# - experience of these or with similar, enterprise web-application stacks is essential. Hands-on experience in back-end and front-end development, and a good understanding of data infrastructure and devops
• Proven experience of using and scaling agile methodologies
• Excellent project management skills
• Strong communication skills – particularly with non-technical audiences

 
Nice to have:

• Experience managing Information and cybersecurity policies across the org to comply with client and regulatory requirements

Behaviours and Values needed:

• Inspiring leader, reliable and with a team-first mindset
• High standards, excited by good quality code
• Highly organised and pragmatic
• Excellent communication skills, everyone around you always knows what’s going on

Benefits

Benefits

• 28 days annual leave pro-rata (plus public holidays)
• EMI share option scheme
• Enhanced parental and other leave policies
• £500 annual training budget
• £200 home working budget
• Flexible working with core hours
• Up to 6% pension match

About Little Journey

Little Journey was founded in 2018 by Dr Chris Evans and Sophie Copley. As an anaesthetic doctor and father himself, Chris witnessed first-hand the distress experienced by children and families coming to hospital for surgery. Partnering with Sophie, an expert in human-centred product design, they created a prototype version of the Little Journey app to support children undergoing elective surgery.

Since then, the business has accelerated quickly, having been adopted in more than 100 healthcare organisations worldwide. We also partner with leading organisations such as LEGO and top tier pharmaceutical companies. They provide us global access to paediatric services and clinical research, helping us reach more children. We received investment from internationally leading VC funds and are using this to scale further into other markets. Our technology is already available in 16 languages and counting!

Our teams are grouped into Product, Technology, Delivery, Operations, Commercial and Science departments, and we are hiring talent across all these functions to help us achieve our mission.

Diversity & Inclusion

We encourage people from all walks of life to apply and strive to eliminate unconscious bias in our recruitment process. We do not discriminate on ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran or parental status or disability. We encourage candidates from underrepresented groups to apply. If you need adjustments made to our application process, to help accommodate any disabilities, please do let us know on