Head of Engineering (Software & Data)

Oritain is the global leader in product verification, with locations in Auckland, Dunedin, London, Singapore and Washington D.C.

Our Mission: Science, Technology, and Global Impact

Our organisation sits at the intersection of forensic science and supply chain technology. We harness science and services to verify the genuine origin of materials, building an interconnected community of verified buyers and suppliers. Our mission is critical: to protect people and the planet by ensuring transparency and integrity in global supply chains.

We are looking for a Head of Engineering to own the strategy, people, and process that will build the foundational technology required to deliver this mission at scale. If you are passionate about using world-class engineering leadership to solve high-stakes global challenges, this is your opportunity.

The Opportunity: Strategy, Scale & Systems

Reporting directly to the Chief Product & Technology Officer (CPTO), the Head of Engineering is a pivotal leadership role responsible for defining and executing the technical roadmap. This is a role for an experienced leader who can elevate a talented team and architect a future-proof platform.

You will have complete ownership of the strategy, people, and process for our software and data engineering functions, ensuring we build the robust infrastructure and intuitive, client-facing capabilities that translate complex forensic data into actionable supply chain intelligence.

Key Responsibilities

Engineering Strategy & Architecture

• Define and Champion the Technical Vision: Establish a clear, scalable, and secure engineering roadmap that aligns directly with our mission and commercial goals.
• Architectural Oversight: Direct the architectural evolution of our platform, ensuring resilience, performance, and security across all data pipelines, cloud services, and client applications.
• Technology Leadership: You will be the ultimate technical authority, evaluating and driving the adoption of new technologies (e.g., Azure services, advanced data processing tools) to maintain a competitive edge.

People & Team Leadership

• Cu ltivate High Performance: Lead, mentor, and inspire a growing engineering team (10 people currently), fostering a culture of ownership, technical excellence, continuous improvement, and deep collaboration with our Science and Product teams.
• Scaling & Recruitment: Define the team structure, identify capability gaps, and lead the recruitment of top-tier software and data engineers to meet ambitious growth plans.
• Performance Management: Implement effective processes for objective setting, performance reviews, and career development within the engineering function.

Process & Delivery Excellence

• Establish Best Practices: Introduce and refine agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, QA processes, and operational best practices to maximise quality, velocity, and predictability.
• Operational Excellence: Oversee the operational health and observability of our platform, ensuring high uptime and establishing strong DevOps principles.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Act as a core member of the leadership team, working closely with Product Management and Data Science leads to translate complex research and business requirements into deliverable engineering sprints.

The Engineering Environment

• Core Technologies: Azure (Paas/IaaS), .NET, React, Angular, SQL/NoSQL databases. We maintain a clear appetite for adopting new, market-leading technologies to enhance our platform.
• Team: A focused, high-performing team of engineers, with plans for strategic growth.
• Work Style: We operate a hybrid model, requiring a minimum of three days per week in our London office to maximise collaboration and leadership presence.

Skills & Experience

• Proven Engineering Leadership: Extensive experience (typically 5+ years) leading and managing software and data engineering teams, ideally within a high-growth or high-compliance sector (e.g., FinTech, DeepTech, Science/Data).
• Strategic Cloud Expertise: Deep, practical experience defining strategy and scaling solutions on Microsoft Azure .
• Full-Stack & Data Domain Expertise: Strong understanding of modern software development practices across the stack (including current exposure to or knowledge of .NET, React, and Angular ) and the ability to oversee complex data engineering pipelines (ETL/ELT, data warehousing).
• Process Mastery: Demonstrated track record of establishing and refining robust engineering processes, including CI/CD, DevOps, security, and agile methodologies.
• Excellent Communication: Exceptional ability to negotiate and communicate technical strategy and trade-offs clearly with all stakeholders.

Desirable Attributes

• Experience in organisations dealing with physical data, scientific datasets, or supply chain/logistics technology.
• A passion for our mission and the application of technology to solve real-world problems related to sustainability and ethical sourcing.

Company Benefits

• Paid Leave- 35 days (inclusive of public holidays)
• Birthday Off
• Volunteering Leave Allowance
• Enhanced Parental Leave
• Life Insurance
• Healthcare Cash Plan
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
• Pension
• Monthly Wellbeing Allowance
• Breakfast, Snacks, Friday lunch & Barista Coffee Machine in the office
• Learning Portal with over 100,000 assets available to support professional development
• Hybrid working set-up (Farringdon, London)
• Plenty of friendly 4-legged pets in the office!