Head of Engineering, Cards

ABOUT THE TEAM:

Cards is one of the largest revenue lines at Tide. The domain owns everything that happens on the card: issuing and processing across the UK, EU and India, each with its own processors, card schemes and regulators.

This includes prepaid, debit, multi-currency and team cards, alongside products such as Apple Pay and Google Pay tokenisation, 3DS, card controls and settlement.

The teams are cross-functional, working closely with product, design, commercial and operations. Engineering comprises three teams, with engineers based in Bulgaria, Lithuania and India.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

As Head of Engineering, Cards, you will lead the engineering organisation across the UK, EU and India, shaping the next phase of the Cards platform.

With the core platform transformation largely complete, your focus will be on:

• Product and member experience: Partnering with Product and Design to improve card experiences, including tokenisation, payment journeys, team controls and reducing false declines.
• AI-led engineering: Embedding AI coding agents across the software development lifecycle to improve engineering productivity, delivery speed and quality.
• Platform and commercial ownership: Completing the transition from our legacy processor, strengthening partner relationships and driving improvements in cost efficiency and unit economics.

You will set the technical direction, develop engineering leadership and ensure the platform remains reliable, scalable and commercially sustainable.

As Head of Engineering, Cards, you will:

• Lead and develop engineering managers and senior engineers across distributed teams.
• Define the technical strategy and architecture for the Cards domain.
• Drive reliability, scalability and cost efficiency across card issuing and processing.
• Embed AI-assisted and agentic development practices across engineering teams.
• Partner with Product, Design and Commercial teams to prioritise and deliver the roadmap.
• Own technical relationships with card processors and schemes, including integrations and certifications.
• Strengthen engineering capabilities, particularly at Staff and senior IC levels.
• Collaborate with other engineering leaders across Payments on shared infrastructure.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

We are looking for an experienced engineering leader with a strong technical foundation and a track record of leading large, distributed engineering organisations.

Experience and background

• Experience leading engineering managers and large engineering teams.
• Strong experience in cards, payments or banking, with a deep understanding of card issuing, processing and card scheme operations. Experience on either the issuer or processor side is a strong plus.
• Experience building and operating distributed engineering teams across multiple locations.
• Proven ability to improve engineering delivery, productivity and quality.
• Experience partnering with Product, Commercial and Finance leaders on business outcomes and unit economics.
• Experience managing third-party technology providers and strategic partnerships.

Technical expertise

• Strong understanding of microservices, event-driven architecture and cloud-native systems.
• Experience with relational databases, distributed systems and large-scale transaction processing.
• Ability to challenge architectural decisions and engage in technical and production-level discussions.
• Hands-on experience with AI coding agents and their application across the software development lifecycle.

Leadership

• Ability to set technical direction and drive execution through engineering leaders.
• Strong commercial acumen and data-driven decision-making.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• A strong focus on developing engineering talent and building high-performing teams.

OUR TECH STACK: 

Java and Spring Boot microservices running on AWS, with PostgreSQL as our primary datastore. We use SNS/SQS for asynchronous and event-driven messaging. Observability is Coralogix. CI/CD runs through GitHub with automated testing and security scanning. Mobile is Flutter, web is Angular.

WHAT YOU’LL GET IN RETURN:

Our location-specific employee benefits are designed to cater to the unique needs of Tideans:

• Competitive Compensation – Competitive salary and share options.
• Time Off – Generous annual leave on top of bank holidays.
• Parental Leave – Paid maternity, paternity, and adoption leave to support your family journey.
• Sabbatical – Extended unpaid and paid leave options after completing milestone years with Tide.
• Access to salary sacrifice benefits – like Nursery (could save up to 47% on fees!) and Cycle to Work discounts.
• Health Insurance – Comprehensive Private family insurance plan.
• Life & Accident Cover – Comprehensive accidental and life insurance protection.
• Mental Wellbeing – Access to therapy sessions, courses, meditations, and workshops.
• Retirement Planning – Build your retirement fund faster with Tide’s pension scheme on eligible earnings.
• Volunteering & Development Days – Paid days annually for volunteering or personal growth.
• Learning & Development – Annual budget for books, courses, coaching, and more.
• WOO (Work Outside the Office) – Work from abroad for up to 90 days annually.
• Home Office Setup – Contribution towards setting up your home office
• Laptop Ownership – Keep your old laptop and get a new one when it’s time for a replacement.
• Snacks & Meals – Daily breakfast spread with all-day coffee, tea, and juices.

TIDEAN WAYS OF WORKING

At Tide, we champion a flexible workplace model that supports both in-person and remote work to cater to the specific needs of our different teams. 

While remote work is supported, we believe in the power of face-to-face interactions to foster team spirit and collaboration. Our offices are designed as hubs for innovation and team-building, where we encourage regular in-person gatherings to foster a strong sense of community.