Head of Product Engineering / Engineering

Kroo has a big vision. To be the first bank that is both trusted and loved by its customers. We're helping people take control of their financial future and achieve their goals, whilst making a positive impact on the planet. Here at Kroo, doing what is right is in our DNA. We act with integrity, transparency and honesty. We think big, dream big, and relentlessly pursue our goals. We like to be bold, break new ground, and we never stop learning. But most importantly, we are on this journey together.

We are a multi-disciplined team of experienced technology, banking, customer experience, marketing, and legal professionals who share a passion for the company's mission and believe in a collaborative approach to creating the greatest social bank. We are building a diverse team of inquisitive people who want to understand customer needs and behaviour so we can develop innovative products that change people's lives for good. The Kroo is growing and we'd love to hear from you if you're interested in joining us on our journey!

The Head of Product Engineering / Engineering will be pivotal in translating Kroo Bank product and technology vision into secure, scalable and reliable digital platforms. This role carries bank wide responsibility for the leadership and delivery of product engineering and software engineering, ensuring customer centric, resilient and compliant experiences across our systems and channels. The successful candidate will balance hands on technical leadership with people leadership, operational excellence and regulatory obligations, delivering outcomes that create value for customers and the business. Other responsibilities include:

• Lead product engineering and engineering teams to deliver high quality, customer centric features and platforms that are reliable, secure and compliant.
• Translate the enterprise product and technology strategy into a clear engineering strategy, roadmap and set of priorities aligned with the bank's vision and strategy.
• Define, embed and continually improve modern engineering standards including secure code, quality engineering, automated testing, continuous delivery, observability, and site reliability engineering.
• Own day to day technical architecture decisions for digital products and platforms, working with principal engineers and architects to ensure scalability, maintainability and security.
• Drive platform reliability and operational excellence, ensuring strong incident management, problem management, change management and post incident review practices.
• Champion effective delivery practices across cross functional squads, promoting agile ways of working, outcome focused planning, clear accountabilities and the removal of delivery blockers.
• Embed regulatory, operational risk and security requirements into the engineering lifecycle so that controls are designed in, evidenced and sustainable.
• Oversee the technical aspects of vendor and partner relationships, ensuring integrations are robust, service levels are met and technology risk is well managed.
• Manage engineering budgets in line with financial plans, including cloud spend, tooling and third party services, ensuring transparent value realisation from investments.
• Build, lead and develop a diverse and high performing community of engineering leaders and individual contributors with clear career paths, coaching and succession plans.
• Partner closely with Product, Design, Data, Operations, Risk, Compliance and other functions to align priorities, manage trade offs and ensure that engineering decisions support business and customer outcomes.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement and innovation across engineering, encouraging experimentation, reduction of technical debt and adoption of modern tools and practices.

We can be flexible with the structure of our interview process if someone's circumstances or timescales require it but our general structure is:

• CPTO - 30 mins
• Engineering Managers - 60 mins
• Staff Engineers - 60 mins
• Exec/founder - 30 mins

Please let us know if you have any specific requirements or need assistance so we can be as accommodating as possible for you.

At our cutting-edge fintech company, we know that attracting and retaining the best talent means offering top notch benefits that help our employees thrive both in and outside of work. Check out what we currently offer:

• Generous holiday time: 25 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays, 1 Kroo bank holiday (June 24th), and 1 day off during the week of your birthday.
• Personal days: We know that life can be unpredictable, so we offer 3 personal days to use as needed.
• Employer-sponsored volunteer program: We're passionate about giving back to our community, and we support our employees in doing the same with up to 4 hours per month of employer-sponsored volunteer time.
• Mental health support: We care about the mental health of our team members and offer access to Spill, our mental health support partner.
• Workplace pension: We want you to feel secure about your future, so we offer a workplace pension with a 5% employee contribution and a 3% employer top-up.
• Top notch equipment: We provide top of the line equipment necessary for smooth hybrid work, including a MacBook laptop. Additionally, we also offer support in establishing your home office by contributing towards your setup if required.
• Modern office: You'll enjoy access to our modern, bustling workspace in Farringdon, Central London.
• Cycle to Work scheme: We encourage sustainable transportation with our Cycle to Work scheme.
• Electric Car scheme: We're committed to reducing our carbon footprint, and our Electric Car scheme makes it easy for our employees to do the same.
• Enhanced parental leave: We know that family comes first, and we offer an enhanced parental leave policy to support our employees in starting and growing their families.
• Room for growth: As a fast paced, high growth start up, we're dedicated to providing our employees with room to grow and excel.
• You get full healthcare for you and your nuclear family via Vitality.

Currently, the majority of Kroo is working fully remotely. Working remotely has changed many of our lives for the better and we are behind continuing the benefits of flexibility once restrictions are lifted. At the same time, we have a beautiful office in Farringdon, which, when used for the right things, can be a useful and powerful tool. Currently we see a blended model of working 1 2 days a week in the office, so candidates that are able to travel in occasionally are the best fit for our current working practices.

We wholeheartedly uphold our commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. Every employee is highly regarded, respected, and supported without any form of judgement or prejudice. We consider Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion as fundamental pillars guiding our path in all aspects of our bank. We also ensure that reasonable adjustments are made available to all candidates throughout the recruitment process.

At Kroo Bank, agency resumes are strictly prohibited. Do not submit agency resumes or forward them to our job advertisements or Kroo Bank employees. Be aware that Kroo Bank will not assume any responsibility for fees incurred due to unsolicited resumes.

To ensure a fair and efficient application process, all candidates are kindly requested to submit their applications directly through the advertised platform. We kindly ask that you refrain from reaching out to the company or its employees via email, LinkedIn, or any other communication channels for inquiries or updates. Please note that any attempts to contact us through these channels will not receive a response. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.