Job Specifications
Head of Engineering (AI-First SaaS Platform)
£95,000 – £130,000 base + equity (EMI) + benefits
Location: UK (Hybrid – Office & Remote)
Keepnet is an AI-driven SaaS platform experiencing strong, sustained growth, helping organisations manage human cyber risk at scale.
With Agentic AI live in production, Keepnet operates autonomous agents that plan, build, localise, and run security awareness and human risk workflows, supported by strong guardrails, deep observability, and human-in-the-loop controls where required.
We are looking for a Head of Engineering to scale these production-grade agentic systems, strengthen platform reliability, and lead global engineering teams to deliver a secure, highly reliable, and operationally mature SaaS platform.
This role sits at the intersection of AI-first engineering, distributed systems, and customer impact, working closely with the leadership team, customer success, development, DevOps, and security teams to ensure engineering accelerates, rather than blocks, sustainable growth.
This is not a maintenance role.
This is a build, scale, and lead role.
Why This Role Matters
You will own the engineering vision and execution of Keepnet’s core platform, operating across the UK, EU, US, UAE, and Canada, supported by distributed offshore and nearshore teams.
Your leadership will directly influence platform stability, delivery predictability, the maturity of AI systems in production, and customer trust as the business scales.
What’s In It for You
Strategic ownership of the engineering function end-to-end
EMI-qualified equity with meaningful upside
An AI-first environment with production-grade agentic systems
The opportunity to shape engineering at a critical growth stage
A structured hybrid working model with strong in-office collaboration
Leadership exposure across a multinational organisation
What You’ll Do
Own and scale the global engineering organisation, including onshore, nearshore, and offshore teams
Establish clear delivery standards, communication rituals, and accountability models for distributed teams
Design and evolve a distributed SaaS architecture using Azure, AWS, Cloudflare, Kubernetes, managed databases, queues, and workers
Maintain the platform with clear ownership, fast remediation, and a strong bias towards preventing recurring production issues
Champion AI-assisted software engineering, using tools such as Cursor as part of everyday workflows while keeping engineering judgement and accountability with people
Embed observability-driven reliability, leveraging metrics, tracing, and tools such as Sentry to proactively detect and prevent incidents
Lead teams building asynchronous, distributed systems using message queues, background workers, and event-driven patterns
Ensure high standards of engineering quality and maintainability, making pragmatic trade-offs without compromising system integrity
Work closely with DevOps on CI/CD pipelines, release safety, and infrastructure resilience
Translate business priorities into clear technical roadmaps and execution plans
Support leadership with technical analysis, documentation, budgeting, and reporting
Build a culture of ownership and production accountability across teams
Hire, mentor, and retain high-performing engineers and engineering leaders globally
You will not be expected to do everything yourself.
Success in this role will be measured by platform reliability, delivery predictability, team health, and customer impact.
What You’ll Bring
Proven experience leading distributed engineering teams, including offshore and nearshore models
Strong hands-on background with .NET, Python, and JavaScript/TypeScript
Deep experience with cloud infrastructure (Microsoft Azure, AWS, Cloudflare)
Strong understanding of Agile and Scrum in distributed environments
Experience with AI-assisted development workflows
Experience operating multi-region SaaS platforms at scale
Strong collaboration with DevOps teams and ownership of CI/CD pipelines
A security-first mindset, building systems that are secure by design (safe APIs, data protection, least-privilege access)
Excellent communication skills across Slack, Microsoft Teams, and in-person settings
A leadership approach grounded in clarity, ownership, and delivery
Life at Keepnet
At Keepnet, engineering is a strategic growth engine, not a support function.
What you can expect:
Hybrid working with meaningful in-person collaboration
Global teams and real-world scale
Annual leave of 25 days, plus one additional day per year of service
Enhanced parental leave
Gym support and a cycle-to-work scheme
EMI-qualified equity
Monthly team lunches and quarterly offsites
A culture that supports learning, experimentation, and continuous improvement
Why This Role Is Different
This role is for someone who:
Enjoys building what others hesitate to own
Treats distributed teams as a design challenge, not a compromise
Knows when to move fast and when stability matters more
Uses observab