Director of Engineering

Riga is a key engineering hub for GoCardless, an important stand-alone hub with over 200 people. All of the core Connectivity group is based there, the team that builds and runs every bank debit and open banking connection we offer, owning the full problem space end to end: build, operate, on-call and incident management, the same way any of our other groups do.

We need someone to do three main things: ensure Connectivity delivers as a core group, responsible for all core banking connections and file submissions, managing billions of pounds in submissions every month, work that has to run flawlessly, every day; be the engineering site leader for Riga, working with local leadership to make the office a destination for people; and help advocate for and hire in Riga, working with grassroots training schools and communities to make GoCardless a destination for local talent.

• Owning the roadmap - strategically plan our reliability and future delivery with other senior leaders, while prioritising technical investment with a clearly articulated ROI.
• Shaping a growing hub - genuine scope to shape what Riga becomes next: how Connectivity operates at scale, and how we attract, grow and retain local talent.
• Embracing change - you have a growth mindset, open to new ideas and change, while staying committed to focus and speed.
• Cutting through the complexity - you're a self-starter who can take ambiguous problems that may be outside your experience and apply first principles thinking and reasoning to decompose, hypothesise, test, execute and deliver.
• Being customer obsessed - you focus on the outcomes and impact for customers in the work we deliver.
• Delivery - you thrive on getting things done, and on enabling those around you to get more done.
• Being a player-manager - you can deep dive into technical problems and future architecture, and earn the respect of senior engineers along the way.
• Excellence - you recognise the importance of building a high-performance engineering culture, and have a view on how to get there.

• Experience of building and managing agile teams or departments of 20+ people, including managing both managers and individual contributors up to Principal level.
• Experience of working at scale, where security and operational excellence are critical to success.
• Delivery - someone who ensures project work is delivered, estimates are accurate, time is tracked and velocity is measured and used to improve the team.
• Clear communication - concise, regular communication to a leadership team, often non-technical, on progress against strategy and team objectives.
• A strategic mindset - comfortable tackling long-term roadmaps and our longer-term problems and vision.
• Comfortable being based in our Riga office; this isn't a remote role.

• Wellbeing- stay healthy with dedicated support and medical cover
• Lunch- based on the location, you either get a meal voucher or a paid lunch when working from the office
• Work away scheme - gives you the option to work away from your country of residence for up to 20 working days in any 12-month period
• Adaptive Working - allows you to work flexibly, around your lifestyle
• Parental leave - to suit everyone embarking on life's great adventure
• Learning Budget - lead your own development with an annual learning budget
• Time off - generous holiday allowance + volunteer days for ERG events + one day off if you need to move house