SVP – Engineering — Risk And Controls Estate

The mandate

A privately held bank has committed more engineering work than its teams and architecture can absorb. Control automation, platform maintenance and business change compete for the same specialists. Roadmaps report dates without exposing shared dependencies, while urgent fixes add services and data flows that deepen complexity. A deliberate reset is needed to restore credible delivery.

The SVP – Engineering will influence approximately £74,100 million in loans and deposits and lead around 650 employees and material partners. The remit covers engineering strategy, architecture, software delivery, platform reliability, developer experience, quality, technical risk, vendors and remediation commitments across the risk and controls estate. The post is accountable to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor.

The appointee will establish honest capacity. Productive engineering time must be separated from support, incidents, regulatory evidence, security remediation and unavoidable maintenance. Skills, environments and approval queues should appear alongside headcount. A plan is not feasible because teams have been allocated on a slide; critical-path people and systems must be available when assumed.

Commitments will be recut around risk and dependency. Supervisory deadlines deserve priority, but each solution also needs an operable architecture, test route and retirement plan. The SVP will renegotiate scope or sequence when an artificial milestone would create fragile manual controls. Changes to commitments must be supported by transparent evidence and early supervisory engagement.

Architecture coherence will be practical. Standards should identify approved patterns, data ownership, interfaces, resilience and exceptions. Waivers need a consequence, owner and expiry. The executive will reduce parallel tools and duplicate control services while avoiding a theoretical target architecture that cannot support near-term remediation.

Quality will be designed through delivery. Automated tests, production-like environments, code review, security checks, observability and rollback should reduce late assurance. Defects must be traced to the conditions that created them, not simply counted after release. Independent validation remains separate, but evidence should be generated by normal engineering routines.

Reliability connects engineering to customer and control outcomes. Service objectives, incident severity, recovery, change failure and recurring operational toil will be visible by platform. The SVP will protect time for root-cause removal rather than reward teams for repeatedly recovering from preventable failures.

Third parties need the same standards. Contracts, repositories, access, documentation and knowledge transfer should permit the bank to operate and change material services. Vendor capacity cannot be assumed until named people and environments are secured. Commercial incentives should reward accepted outcomes, not activity volume.

The organisation will strengthen technical leadership. Engineering managers must own people and flow; principal engineers need authority across team boundaries; platform and control owners require explicit decisions. Succession will be demonstrated through live incident, architecture and release responsibilities, reducing dependence on a handful of long-tenured specialists.

Investment reporting will link cost to capability and retirement. Benefits are credible only when manual work, duplicated platforms, incidents or external capacity end. Finance, risk and engineering will use one baseline, preventing remediation progress from being claimed differently in separate forums.

Why this seat is open

This planned replacement provides for an agreed incumbent handover over four to six months. The timing preserves leadership continuity during remediation while allowing the successor to shape the next roadmap before capital and delivery capacity are recommitted.

What you will own

• Reset engineering commitments against genuine capacity and shared dependencies.
• Influence technology choices across a £74,100 million banking perimeter.
• Deliver supervisory remediation through operable, supportable architecture.
• Improve software quality, reliability, recovery and technical-risk evidence.
• Reduce duplicate tools, manual controls and recurring engineering toil.
• Lead approximately 650 employees and partners with stronger technical succession.
• Govern vendors, environments, repositories and knowledge-transfer obligations.
• Give the board credible roadmap ranges, trade-offs and intervention points.

The first 12 months

The initial 90 days should reconcile commitments, capacity and architecture exceptions. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to the roadmap, including supervisors, risk owners, engineers, operations, vendors and business sponsors. Stabilise severe reliability exposure, assess technical leadership and agree decision gates.

Months four to nine should stop or resequence work that cannot clear readiness thresholds. Simplify priority architecture, improve delivery environments and retire recurring manual or duplicate activity. Early value may appear as higher predictability, lower change failure, reduced incident toil or external capacity released.

By year end, roadmap predictability, quality and technical leadership should improve repeatedly. The value case must remain within 10% of approval, with forecasts reconciling delivery, cash, customer and people assumptions for three quarters. Priority engineering risks require independent sustainability evidence; no serious escalation may remain unresolved beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Roadmap reliability after capacity, dependency and readiness adjustment.
• Change failure, escaped defect, service availability and recovery performance.
• Supervisory commitments delivered with maintainable engineering evidence.
• Architecture exceptions retired and duplicate technology cost removed.
• At least nine in ten critical specialists retained and ready cover for seven in ten direct roles.
• Vendor reliance reduced through accepted knowledge and operational transfer.

The person

You are an SVP Engineering, VP R&D or Engineering Centre Head with 22–28 years in banking or a similarly regulated technology estate. You have reset an overcommitted roadmap, strengthened architecture and delivered supervisory obligations without institutionalising emergency work.

Your accountable P&L, book, budget or portfolio has been at least £43,000 million, and you have led 650 or more people. You can show that quality, predictability and risk outcomes endured for two reporting periods after intervention.

You understand modern software delivery and regulated control evidence. You can challenge both a business sponsor demanding an unsafe date and an architect protecting elegance at the expense of delivery, while maintaining credible relationships with supervisors.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is £210,000–280,000 plus annual incentive. The permanent London appointment is onsite, supports international relocation and accommodates notice of up to six months.

Confidentiality

The institution, incumbent and supervisory commitments remain undisclosed. Further information follows mutual fit and confidentiality; the published context is non-identifying.