Head of Integration, Data & GenAI Engineering

Overview

This role brings together leadership across three important parts of our technology landscape: integration engineering, data engineering and GenAI engineering. Reporting to the Director of IT Strategy & Architecture, you will lead through three senior technical leaders: Senior Engineering Manager (EA), Senior Data Engineering Manager, and Software Engineering Team Lead (GenAI). You will help shape the platforms, capabilities and engineering practices that support AJ Bell's long-term strategy. This is a senior leadership role for someone who combines strategic thinking with strong technical credibility and a clear delivery focus. You will be responsible for building high-performing teams, setting clear direction, and ensuring AJ Bell has secure, scalable and well-governed engineering foundations across integration, data and AI.

What does the role involve?

Responsibilities

• Leading and developing AJ Bell's engineering capability across enterprise integration, data engineering and GenAI, with overall responsibility for three direct reports and their teams.
• Setting the strategic direction for integration, data and GenAI engineering in line with AJ Bell's technology strategy, business priorities and regulatory obligations.
• Providing strong leadership to senior managers and technical leads, creating clarity of purpose, clear accountability and a collaborative, high-performing culture, while supporting recruitment, succession planning, capability development and retention across the teams.
• Leading the development of event-driven and data streaming solutions, with a strong focus on integration architecture, API and messaging patterns, reusable engineering standards and modern delivery practices.
• Overseeing the development and operation of AJ Bell's data engineering capabilities, including data ingestion, transformation, provisioning, governance, security, privacy and access to trusted data.
• Driving the design and adoption of GenAI engineering capabilities, including development of a core platform and integration of GenAI solutions into products, services and internal processes where they create clear business value, with appropriate guardrails around security, risk and responsible use.
• Ensuring engineering solutions are secure, scalable, resilient and supportable, with appropriate governance, standards, observability and controls built in from the outset.
• Working closely with product-aligned engineering teams, infrastructure, information security, architecture and business stakeholders to deliver joined-up solutions, support data-driven decision-making and create long-term value.

Qualifications

• Strong leadership experience in senior engineering roles, with a track record of leading technical teams across multiple specialist disciplines.
• Broad technical credibility across software engineering, integration architecture, event-driven systems, data engineering and modern platform architecture.
• Experience leading engineering teams responsible for APIs, backend services, event-driven integration, data platforms and AI-enabled products and services within a complex enterprise environment.
• Strong understanding of modern data engineering practices, including data pipelines, ETL/ELT, data modelling, data governance, security, privacy and access management.
• Experience working with data platforms and technologies such as Snowflake, SQL-based data environments and a range of operational data sources.
• Good understanding of Generative AI and LLM-related engineering patterns, with the ability to lead teams in applying these capabilities pragmatically, securely and responsibly in an enterprise setting.
• Strong strategic thinking and planning skills, with the ability to translate business goals into clear engineering roadmaps and delivery priorities.
• A strong delivery mindset, with experience balancing long-term platform improvement with short-term business outcomes.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with senior leadership, technical teams and non-technical stakeholders, and to translate complex technical concepts into clear business direction.
• Strong people leadership skills, including coaching senior leaders, developing talent, managing performance and building engaged, high-performing teams.
• A collaborative, pragmatic and outcome-focused approach, with the confidence to challenge, influence and lead through change in a regulated environment with a strong focus on customer outcomes.
• Experience of working in a regulated environment, ideally within financial services, with a clear understanding of risk, control and customer outcomes.

What we offer

• Hybrid working with a minimum of 60% of working time per month spent in the office. For new starters, there is an initial period of full-time office working to help you settle in and build relationships.
• 28 days holiday, increasing with service, plus buy/sell scheme and bank holidays
• 8% Pension with matched contributions
• Discretionary bonus scheme
• Share schemes (including free shares and BAYE)
• Health Cash Plan and discounted private healthcare
• Free onsite gym
• Enhanced family leave (subject to qualifying criteria)
• Travel and bike loan schemes
• Employee Assistance Programme

About AJ Bell

AJ Bell is one of the UK's fastest-growing investment platform businesses, providing award-winning solutions for professionals and individual investors. Today, over 723,000 customers trust us to manage more than £108.7 billion of assets. We are recognised as one of the UK\'s Best 100 Companies to Work For and a Great Place to Work in 2025 and 2026.