Head of Engineering

Why choose Valpak?

Valpak has created a friendly and supportive working environment that enables our team to perform to the best of their abilities, with flexible hours, hybrid working options, access to training and opportunities to get involved in various groups to nurture key interests.

With social value at the heart of our business ethos, employees can take a day on us to volunteer for an organisation of their choice, and our Charity Committee organises fundraising events for the employee nominated charity of the year.

Valpak endorses wellbeing and healthy lifestyles, offering subsidised gym membership, optional healthy living seminars and social events, encouraging cross team integration. Plus the “After Work” social group organises regular gatherings – an opportunity to get to know friendly faces.

Our team is passionate, friendly, approachable and dedicated to the business mission – to inspire businesses to do all they can to reduce their environmental impact. If you have an interest in sustainability and like the sound of all Valpak offers, we would love to hear from you!

What will I be doing?

As the Head of Engineering, your key responsibilities will be:

• Lead and own all software engineering delivery for Valpak, reporting to the CTO (Comply).
• Act as Valpak’s senior software engineering leader, supporting strategic initiatives and bids.
• Lead, mentor and develop Tech Leads and product engineering squads.
• Build a high‑performance engineering culture aligned to Reconomy standards.
• Drive recruitment, retention and development of engineering talent, leveraging near‑shore capability.

• Define and deliver Valpak’s engineering strategy aligned to Comply and Reconomy objectives.
• Own and maintain a multi‑year technology roadmap.
• Ensure technology investments enable scalability, efficiency and innovation.
• Continuously evolve strategy in line with market and technology trends.

• Establish and uphold engineering, architectural and coding standards.
• Embed modern development practices including DevOps, CI/CD and automation.
• Improve delivery speed, quality and productivity through standardised tooling and AI.
• Ensure consistency and maintainability across all software products.

• Define and deliver a multi‑year data strategy aligned to Reconomy’s Data Strategy.
• Support enterprise data architecture, governance, security and quality standards.
• Implement a Data as a Product approach, enabling reuse and potential monetisation of data assets.

• Set data engineering standards and governance across Valpak.
• Enable trusted self‑service analytics via Reconomy’s Datastream platform.
• Oversee the design, optimisation and scalability of Azure‑based data platforms.

• Implement Reconomy’s engineering quality strategy, standards and testing frameworks.
• Enforce quality gates across the full development lifecycle.
• Champion a culture of shared ownership for quality and continuous improvement.
• Provide assurance on product quality, release readiness and risk.

• Implement Reconomy’s cloud strategy across Valpak systems.
• Embed modern DevSecFinOps and shift‑left ownership within engineering teams.
• Ensure cloud platforms are secure, resilient, scalable and cost‑optimised.
• Drive automation and infrastructure‑as‑code adoption.

• Drive adoption of agentic AI across the software development lifecycle.
• Ensure AI‑assisted development is safe, secure and aligned to engineering standards.
• Track and improve engineering performance metrics and delivery predictability.

• Act as the Technology Business Partner for Valpak senior leadership.
• Align engineering delivery with business priorities and growth objectives.
• Communicate strategy, progress and outcomes to technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Lead resourcing, prioritisation and delivery of high‑impact initiatives.

• • Ensure compliance with enterprise security, resilience and ISO27001 requirements.
  • Embed secure‑by‑design principles into engineering practices.
  • Support operational resilience through robust system and reliability engineering.
  • Partner with security and infrastructure teams to manage and mitigate risk.

What kind of businesses will I be working with?