Head of Engineering Operations

About the role

Role Overview

We are seeking a Head of Engineering Operations to raise the effectiveness of Zellis’ engineering organisation by improving quality, throughput, and confidence. The outcome of this role is improved engineering throughput and quality - not tools, platforms, or process adoption. You will design how engineering work happens, treating internal engineers as customers, and improving the systems they work within every day.

This is not DevOps and not a delivery or PMO role. It is an engineering-first enablement and operating role, focused on improving how software is built at scale.

Partnered closely with Engineering leadership, you will work across value-stream teams to remove friction, reduce rework, and improve outcomes. You will be expected to challenge and change existing practices where they hinder quality, throughput, or confidence, working with leadership to make those changes stick. Success will be measured through sustained improvement in engineering throughput and stability (e.g. lead time, deployment frequency etc.)

Key Responsibilities

Identify where engineering effort is lost (e.g. rework, slow feedback cycles, unclear standards, tooling friction) and turn that insight into high-leverage, system-level improvements.

Design and evolve the engineering operating system - standards, expectations, and decision flow - so teams move faster with higher confidence, not more process

AI-Enabled Engineering (Outcome-Led)

Lead the adoption of AI-augmented engineering practices that measurably improve engineering outcomes - particularly lead time for changes, defect prevention, and review quality.

Introduce structured, repeatable patterns for AI-assisted development so outputs are predictable, maintainable, and auditable.

Establish clear guardrails covering security, quality, maintainability, and traceability, ensuring AI increases confidence rather than risk.

Developer Experience & Tooling

Own the developer experience end-to-end, including local development, build and test speed, CI signal quality, code review flow, and release readiness.

Drive investment and adoption in tooling that reduces friction and improves feedback speed and clarity (where appropriate, partner with platform and infrastructure teams)

Quality, Reliability & Learning Loops

Raise the organisation’s quality bar through better preventive practices (testing strategy, quality gates, review discipline) and faster detection through effective observability.

Ensure incidents and defects result in systematic improvement, not isolated fixes, so repeat failures and rework reduce over time.

Measurement, Insight & Enablement

Establish baselines and track meaningful engineering performance indicators, including deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change fail rate, and recovery time.

Work hands-on with engineers, tech leads, and managers to embed improved practices through examples, playbooks, and focused enablement. Build communities of practice so improvements spread without central bottlenecks.

Leveraging the DX tool to provide maximum transparency and insight into the development engine.

What Type of Leader We’re Looking For

You are an engineering centric leader who cares deeply about how software is built. You think in systems, constraints, and leverage rather than process compliance. You are comfortable working close to the detail while keeping a clear view of outcomes.

You see AI as a genuine shift in how engineering work gets done and are motivated to turn that potential into everyday reality. You influence through credibility, pragmatism, and trust - not mandate or ceremony. You are energised by making other engineers better at their craft.

Experience

Senior experience improving engineering effectiveness in complex software organisations (engineering operations, productivity, platform, or enablement roles)

Strong understanding of modern software delivery measurement, including DORA throughput and stability metrics

Proven ability to improve developer experience, quality, and delivery outcomes through tooling, standards, and adoption

Practical experience embedding AI into engineering workflows in a way that improves outcomes and remains maintainable

Strong communication and influencing skills across engineering and senior leadership

Benefits & Culture

At Zellis we create market-leading HR & Payroll products and services, to power exceptional employee experiences so that you and your people do better. Our multi-award-winning products pay over five million employees a year, with almost half (42%) of the FTSE 100, 50% of the top retailers and 30% of the top universities in the UK & Ireland as customers, making us the largest provider of Payroll and HR software and managed services.

Our vision is to be the clear leader in pay, reward, analytics, and people experiences. We're passionate about creating an environment where people want to join, belong to, and be part of a progressive organisation. Our values, which were defined with input from all of our 2,000 colleagues, we live and breathe every day:

Unstoppable together.

Always learning.

Make it count.

Think scale.

Our people are critical to our ongoing success; we’re proud of our inclusive culture that gives you the platform to grow, challenge the status quo and play a crucial role in further enhancing our market position as the leading provider of HR & Payroll software and services. With Zellis you’ll have the chance to stretch and challenge yourself in an environment that’s varied, flexible and hugely supportive.

We also love to reward and recognise our brilliant colleagues. As part of your benefits package, you’ll receive:

A competitive base salary.

25 days annual leave, plus your birthday off and the opportunity to buy additional holiday.

Private medical insurance.

Life assurance 4x salary.

Enhanced pension scheme with company contributions up to 8.5%.

A huge range of additional flexible benefits across financial & personal wellbeing, lifestyle & leisure.