Warner Hotels has built the foundations for a modern digital and data estate — cloud-native on AWS, data platform on Snowflake, guest engagement through Bloomreach, and digital experience via Optimizely. The API-enabled architecture is in place. What has been missing is the internal engineering leadership and capability to actually exploit it. We are looking for a Head of Digital & Data Delivery to deliver this. This is the most commercially impactful engineering leadership role in Warner's technology team — the person who will build and lead the capability that turns our modern platform into guest-facing products, data intelligence, and automated processes that drive revenue and reduce costs.
The Core Mission
You will own the end-to-end engineering delivery of Warner's digital products and data platform — from the MyWarner guest portal and Club Warner loyalty programme to the executive AI dashboard real-time reporting, and the automation capabilities we are building across the estate. You will lead our engineering partner model, setting the standards, managing the relationships, and ensuring delivery quality across onshore, nearshore and offshore squads. Additionally, you will build the internal digital and data engineering capability that Warner needs to become genuinely self-sufficient in the medium term.
Why Join Us?
- Modern foundations, no greenfield delay: AWS, Snowflake, Optimizely, Bloomreach, Amazon Connect — the stack is live and the data is flowing. You are accelerating, not starting.
- Products that matter: MyWarner portal, Club Warner, AI concierge, Snowflake by Warner — these are not internal tools. They are the commercial engine of a growing hospitality brand.
Key Responsibilities for this role will include:
Digital Product Engineering
- Own and lead engineering delivery for Warner's guest-facing digital products — WarnerHotels.co.uk, the MyWarner guest portal, Club Warner loyalty platform, and the AI concierge / booking assistant.
- Drive continuous improvement of the digital booking funnel — IBE enhancements, search experience, conversion optimisation — in partnership with the commercial and marketing teams.
- Lead integration of WhatsApp as an inbound customer engagement channel through Amazon Connect, and the BPMS / automation platform build-out.
- Ensure digital products are built to engineering standards that are scalable, maintainable, and security-compliant — not just delivered at pace.
Data Platform & Engineering
- Own the data engineering roadmap — delivering full iStay transaction visibility, Maestro PMS integration, Zonal F&B data, ElementSuite labour data, and Coupa procurement data into Snowflake.
- Lead delivery of the Customer Foundation Model — a single view of the guest that powers MyWarner, Club Warner personalisation, and Bloomreach campaign enrichment.
- Oversee the build of Lumen by Warner — the AI-powered executive KPI dashboard providing real-time P&L visibility and conversational analytics for the senior leadership team.
- Govern data quality, data latency, and platform uptime across the Snowflake data platform and BI layer (Power BI, Tableau).
Engineering Partner Management
- Act as the intelligent client for Warner's engineering partner ecosystem — Frontline (nearshore digital), Data Action (offshore data engineering), and any future strategic DevOps partner.
- Set engineering standards, review architectures, drive accountability on quality and velocity, and ensure partners are genuinely aligned to Warner's strategic outcomes — not just executing tickets.
- Lead the transition from the current fragmented contractor model to a consolidated strategic engineering partner arrangement, in coordination with the CTO and Head of Architecture.
Capability & Team Building
- Build the internal digital and data engineering team — recruiting and developing a lean but high-calibre core of product engineers, data engineers, and DevOps capability.
- Introduce and embed modern engineering practices: sprint-based delivery, CI/CD pipelines, code quality standards, architecture review cadence.
- Work closely with the Head of Projects & Programmes to ensure engineering delivery is connected to the portfolio governance framework and that roadmap commitments are met.
This role will require the following experience
- Digital engineering: modern web architectures, React / Next.js, API-first design, microservices.
- Data engineering: Snowflake (or equivalent enterprise data platform), dbt, HVR / change data capture, ETL/ELT pipelines.
- Cloud: AWS — Lambda, API Gateway, S3, Redshift, Amazon Connect.
- AI / ML integration: LLM orchestration (LangChain / LlamaIndex), vector databases, conversational AI.
- CRM & engagement platforms: Bloomreach, Optimizely, WhatsApp Business API.
- BI & analytics: Power BI, Tableau.
- DevOps: CI/CD pipelines, GitHub Actions, containerisation (Docker / Kubernetes).
- Hospitality systems context: PMS (Maestro / iStay), POS (Zonal), booking engines — beneficial but not essential.
- A Delivery-First Engineering Leader: You have a track record of shipping digital and data products that move commercial metrics — not just completing technical projects.
- Technically Credible: You can hold your own with senior architects and engineers. You understand trade-offs between speed, quality, and scale — and make the right calls.
- A Partner Orchestrator: You have led hybrid onshore / nearshore / offshore engineering models and know how to get genuine performance from external teams.
- A Builder: You are energised by the opportunity to create — a team, a function, a set of practices — not just manage what exists.
- A Commercial Thinker: You connect engineering decisions to business outcomes. You speak the language of revenue, NPS, and conversion — not just story points.
- Extensive experience in digital and / or data engineering roles, with hands-on background but clear evidence of leading teams and delivery initiatives in recent years.
- Significant experience leading cross-functional hybrid squads (data engineers, DevOps, digital developers, UX).
- Proven track record owning strategy, delivery and operations across both digital and data domains.
- Consumer sector experience strongly preferred — hospitality, travel, retail or eCommerce
