Tech Director

I am looking for an experienced Tech Director to lead a CTO Office and help shape how technology strategy is translated into execution. You'll be at the centre of technology leadership, setting the cadence for planning and delivery, driving cross-functional programmes, and ensuring that strategic decisions result in measurable outcomes. You'll be the force behind effective execution: preparing the CTO for critical conversations, maintaining momentum across teams, and acting as a trusted delegate who can confidently represent the CTO's priorities and drive alignment at every level of the organisation. The work spans machine learning, software-defined robotics and modern agile delivery. While you won't be hands-on with model development or control software, you'll need the technical credibility to challenge assumptions, spot critical dependencies, and quickly separate genuine blockers from issues that can be resolved through effective coordination and decision-making. Key Responsibilities

• Lead the CTO Office, defining and maintaining the operating rhythm for planning, governance and execution across the technology organisation.
• Own technology planning and delivery governance, including quarterly planning, OKRs, leadership reviews and cross-functional alignment.
• Maintain clear visibility of delivery across programmes, including progress, dependencies, risks and constraints, ensuring issues are surfaced early and managed effectively.
• Act as a trusted delegate for the CTO, supporting decision-making, representing priorities, and ensuring alignment across technical and business stakeholders.
• Enable CTO effectiveness through structured briefings, decision support, and coordination of strategic priorities across the organisation.
• Lead strategic reporting for the Board, investors and executive leadership, translating technical progress, delivery performance and risks into clear, decision-ready insights.
• Coordinate delivery across teams operating on different cadences, from rapid software release cycles through to longer-term research and development work.
• Apply sufficient technical fluency in machine learning (including MLOps, model deployment and training infrastructure) and software-defined robotics (including ROS/ROS2, simulation and digital twins) to identify risks, challenge assumptions and support sound decision-making.
• Identify and manage risks at the intersection of software, machine learning and hardware systems, particularly where abstraction meets physical constraints.
• Act as a strategic partner to the CTO on organisational design, hiring, technology strategy and investment priorities.
• Lead high-impact special projects including vendor evaluation, build-versus-buy decisions, capability development and organisational change initiatives.
• Anticipate emerging technical and organisational challenges and proactively drive actions that support long-term strategic objectives. What You Bring
• Experience in operational leadership roles such as Chief of Staff, Technical Programme Director, Head of Operations, or equivalent, with responsibility for cross-functional delivery in complex environments.
• Technical fluency developed through close collaboration with engineering teams. You understand how machine learning systems, robotics, and modern software delivery work in practice and are comfortable engaging in technical discussions and reviews.
• Applied experience in machine learning and/or robotics environments, with familiarity in areas such as MLOps, deployment pipelines, model training workflows, and simulation-to-production delivery. Nice to Have
• Prior engineering experience in machine learning, robotics, or software development, with an understanding of how technical systems are built and operated end to end.
• Experience in high-growth or scale-up environments, particularly within deep-tech or complex engineering organisations.
• Familiarity with modern engineering and ML tooling and workflows, such as CI/CD pipelines, Jira or ClickUp, MLflow or Weights & Biases, and simulation or testing environments.
• Experience working in regulated, safety-critical, or physically constrained systems where software interacts directly with hardware or real-world environments.
• Previous experience working closely with, or reporting into, C-level leadership in fast-paced or complex organisations. Phenomenal opportunity to join a very niche, growing business.