Director of Product Engineering | ClearCourse
The Director of Product Engineering is the primary people and delivery leadership role for engineering at ClearCourse. Reporting to the CTTO, the role is accountable for the structure, performance, and continuous improvement of the entire product engineering population across all seven verticals — Field Services, Health, Hospitality, Leisure, Retail, Payments, and CETs.
The role owns capacity, capability, craft standards, and AI adoption across approximately 130 engineers and QA, and is responsible for delivering the headcount reduction from 149 to 98 developers by end 2027 — a primary engineering cost synergy milestone. This is a people-first leadership role that operates at the intersection of commercial accountability and engineering excellence.
Key Accountabilities:
Delivery Leadership
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Accountable for engineering delivery across all vertical pools — Field Services, Health, Hospitality, Leisure, Retail, Payments, CETs — with Heads of Product Engineering as direct reports.
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Senior escalation point for capacity conflicts, capability gaps, and critical resourcing risk across all verticals.
People Leadership
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Line manages all Heads of Product Engineering; sets performance expectations, career pathways, and consistent people standards across the function.
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Owns training, certification, and career development frameworks across the engineering population.
Craft & Standards
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Drives engineering craft standards in conjunction with Director of Platform Engineering — sets and enforces the bar for what good engineering looks like across the pool.
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Accountable for vertical compliance with standards set by Platform Engineering; escalation path for persistent non-compliance is to the CTTO.
Headcount & Capacity
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Owns headcount model and pool sizing; makes the case for capacity changes to SLT against commercial priorities.
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Accountable for the reduction from 149 to 98 developers by end 2027.
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Manages cross-charge accuracy and engineering cost visibility - primary owner, with CTTO accountability to the board.
AI Adoption
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Monitors and drives AI-assisted development adoption across all verticals.
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Escalates where progress is below target; coordinates corrective action with Platform Engineering.
Strategy
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Co-owns group technology strategy at SLT level; contributes the product delivery and engineering people lens to strategic decisions.
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Leads the engineering people contribution to the September 2026 cost synergy milestone.
Key Relationships:
- CTTO - Direct line manager. Engineering strategy, cost milestones, SLT accountability.
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Platform Operations Director - Primary peer relationship. Jointly owns craft standards, tooling adoption, and the engineering operating model.
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Head(s) of Product Engineering - Direct reports. Sets expectations, manages performance, and develops the leadership layer across all verticals.
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Finance - Cross-charge accuracy, headcount cost visibility, and delivery of cost synergy milestones.
Requirements
Essential:
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Proven engineering leadership at scale — 80+ engineers across multiple product lines or business units
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Track record managing distributed, multi-stack engineering populations
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Strong people leadership: has built and restructured engineering teams, managed performance, and developed Heads and Leads
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Commercial fluency: understands cost per engineer, utilisation, cross-charge, and delivery ROI
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Experience operating in PE-backed or high-accountability environments with hard delivery milestones
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Proven ability to drive standardisation across heterogeneous teams without destroying what works
Desirable:
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Experience with .NET estate or Microsoft stack at portfolio level
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Exposure to post-acquisition engineering integration
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Familiarity with AI-assisted development tooling rollout (Claude Code, Cursor) at function scale
Benefits
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Competitive salary + benefits
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25 days holiday + your birthday off
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Private medical insurance (Bupa) & health cash plan
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Life assurance & income protection
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Enhanced parental leave & family wellbeing support
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Perkbox discounts & perks
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Generous pension contributions
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Hybrid working model
Apply now or reach out directly for a confidential conversation.
