Director of Engineering

Our Story Hello there. We’re Zopa. 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. Find out more about our fantastic offerings at Zopa.com! We’re incredibly proud of our achievements and none of it would be possible without the amazing team here. It’s not just industry awards we’re winning, we’ve also been named in the top three UK’s Most Loved Workplaces. If you embrace unconventional challenges, are unafraid to think differently and are driven to make an outsized impact, you’ll thrive here at Zopa, so join us, and make it count. Want to see us in action? Follow us on Instagram @zopalife As 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 set direction, build high-performing teams and drive meaningful improvements across people, technology and ways of working. This isn’t a role focused on incremental change: we’re looking for someone who can identify where the biggest opportunities exist, create a clear strategy and turn it into measurable progress. You’ll have the scope to influence significant technical and architectural decisions, improve engineering effectiveness and shape how we build and operate technology. Your impact will extend beyond the teams you directly lead. 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. Operate with a high degree of autonomy, making decisions and driving execution without requiring significant direction. 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. Reduce key-person dependencies and build an organisation that can perform sustainably as it evolves. 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. Shape Technology & Architecture: Bring the technical credibility to challenge significant design and architectural decisions and make informed judgements on complex technology choices. Develop clear strategies for improving, modernising, consolidating or replacing technology where opportunities exist. Make pragmatic build, buy or partner decisions based on the needs of the organisation. 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. Build effective relationships across Technology and supporting functions, understanding how to leverage those teams rather than simply transact with them. Contribute beyond your immediate organisation, helping raise the level of engineering across Zopa. How you'll do it: Lead with Autonomy & Ownership: Bring the experience to quickly understand the problem space, form a clear point of view and turn it into action. Take ownership of outcomes, moving at pace while knowing when to seek input, support or validation. Draw on lessons from challenges you’ve faced before, adapting your approach rather than relying on a fixed playbook. Be Curious, Adaptable & Improvement-Focused: Ask the right questions, challenge existing approaches and continually look for opportunities to make engineering better. Stay adaptable as business priorities and technology needs evolve, responding effectively when plans need to change. Bring genuine curiosity to emerging technologies, particularly AI, and be willing to experiment, learn and