VP of Engineering
VP of Engineering/Head of Development - Travel Sector experience, start-up/scale up experience
Fully Remote | UK or Europe
We are seeking an experienced VP of Engineering to lead engineering execution, delivery efficiency and team performance within a growing, product-led travel technology business.
This role will own the day-to-day effectiveness of the engineering organisation, ensuring teams are aligned, work is assigned appropriately, and delivery is predictable and high quality. You will partner closely with the CTO to scale the engineering function in a sustainable way.
You will report directly to the CTO.
Role Overview
* Own the operational effectiveness of the engineering organisation
* Ensure tasks are assigned to the appropriate engineers across Backend, Frontend, QA and DevOps
* Improve delivery predictability and execution quality
* Lead team performance, capacity planning and workload distribution
* Partner with the CTO on strategy, quality and long-term scaling
Responsibilities
* Lead and manage engineering teams across Backend, Frontend, QA and DevOps
* Oversee a team of 10 developers, 4 QA engineers and DevOps
* Ensure efficient workload allocation and healthy team capacity
* Identify and resolve delivery bottlenecks
* Work closely with Product to ensure requirements are clearly understood and assigned to the correct technical specialisms
* Improve execution planning, including framework and tooling alignment where required
* Own hiring, onboarding, performance management and career development
* Create and continuously improve engineering processes and ways of working
* Act as the primary escalation point for delivery and team-related issues
This role is not expected to be hands-on in day-to-day coding. Senior developers will continue to lead technical reviews, with the VP providing leadership oversight and operational direction.
Requirements
* Strong background in software engineering with previous hands-on experience
* Proven experience leading and scaling engineering teams
* Demonstrated experience improving delivery efficiency and team performance
* Strong execution mindset with a focus on operational effectiveness
* Excellent people management and communication skills
* Comfortable working closely with a hands-on CTO
* Experience operating in fast-paced, product-led environments
* Experience managing distributed or remote teams
* Comfortable working within an SME or scaling business
Essential Domain Experience
* Proven experience within travel technology
* Strong understanding of hotel systems, availability management, bookings and related integrations
* Familiarity with the technical complexity of transactional travel platforms
Nice to Have
* Experience managing multiple teams or engineering managers
* Experience working in growing or scaling startups
* Understanding of modern backend, frontend and development practices
If you are an experienced engineering leader with travel domain expertise and a track record of improving delivery performance within scaling product teams, this role offers significant ownership and impact.
We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and are committed to building an inclusive engineering environment.