Head of Engineering

At Get Licensed, we help people get training, get licensed and find work, and we do this by leveraging technology to make the whole process as efficient and easy as possible. We operate across a number of verticals, and we're looking to expand those verticals to cater to demand in the UK. We've helped more than 400,000 people get licensed and find work and are consistently rated 5-star on Trustpilot with over 32,000 reviews.

Get Licensed has a brand new sister company - GLOME which is building the next generation of hyper-local community safety: real-time patrol visibility, rapid incident response, neighbourhood intelligence, and a deeply human connection between residents and the first responders who protect them. Our platform powers safety-critical, time-sensitive interactions between homeowners, patrol teams, and operations. Reliability, speed, and trust sit at the core of everything we build.

We are now looking for a
Head of Engineering
to architect, lead, and scale the technology that underpins a new standard of neighbourhood security. As
Head of Engineering
, you will own the entire engineering function — architecture, delivery, reliability, and team growth. This is a hands-on technical leadership role: you will define the long-term tech vision while also diving deep into microservices, real-time systems, scalable backend infrastructure, and integrations with mission-critical patrol operations. You must be comfortable building high-availability systems where failures have real-world consequences. GLOME's ecosystem includes mobile apps, IoT-style data from patrol vehicles, live mapping, incident workflows, and AI-driven safety intelligence.

If you enjoy building from the ground up, designing systems that must never fail, and leading teams in an ambitious, fast-moving environment, you'll thrive here.

What you will be doing:

Technology Leadership & Architecture

• Define and own GLOME's engineering vision, architecture, and long-term technical roadmap.
• Architect
  distributed, microservices-based systems
  optimised for real-time communication, high uptime, and safety-critical reliability.
• Ensure security best practices, data integrity, and robust failover strategies across all components.
• Lead technical decisions around mobile, backend, real-time messaging, geospatial systems, and patrol-car integrations.

System Design for Safety-Critical Operations

• Build systems where every second matters: incident triggers, SOS flows, patrol dispatch, and live monitoring.
• Implement low-latency pipelines, reliable event streaming, and resilient communication between user apps and patrol devices.
• Ensure the platform operates with
  high availability, redundancy, and fault tolerance
  .
• Design monitoring, observability, and alerting for real-world operational safety.

Team Leadership & Culture

• Lead, coach, and grow a high-performing engineering team across backend, mobile, DevOps, and QA.
• Cultivate a culture of ownership, speed, accountability, and technical excellence.
• Hire top talent and build a strong technical organisation that scales with the company.
• Establish strong engineering rituals: code quality, reviews, sprint cadence, testing standards, and on-call processes.

Execution & Delivery

• Drive high-quality delivery while balancing speed, experimentation, and safety requirements.
• Partner with Product and Operations to translate real-world safety challenges into reliable technical solutions.
• Ensure tight alignment between engineering, patrol teams, customer support, and leadership.
• Manage build-vs-buy decisions, technical debt, and infrastructure investments.

Operational Readiness

• Build systems that interact seamlessly with real patrol officers, GPS trackers, vehicle devices, and community workflows.
• Implement rigorous QA for field-tested functionality.
• Maintain strong SLAs for response times, uptime, alerts, and data accuracy.

What we are looking for:

• 10+ years of professional engineering experience
  , including at least
  4+ years in leadership roles
  .
• Deep expertise in
  microservices architecture
  and distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience building
  safety-critical or real-time systems
  (e.g., emergency response, logistics, IoT, healthcare, mobility, fintech, or similar).
• Strong backend engineering background , Go, Java, or similar).
• Experience designing systems with
  high availability, resilience, and low-latency communication
  .
• Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS/GCP), CI/CD, containerisation, and DevOps.
• Proven experience building and scaling engineering teams.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to align tech decisions with operational and business realities.
• Experience with geolocation systems, mapping, or fleet tracking.
• Exposure to mobile app architecture (iOS/Android/Flutter/React Native).
• Background in security, patrol operations, emergency response, or safety-tech.
• Familiarity with event-driven architecture (Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pub/Sub).
• Interest in AI-driven incident detection or predictive safety models.

Expected Behaviours

We're primarily non-hierarchical, allowing all our colleagues to take responsibility from day one. We are committed to achieving excellence whilst having fun and being highly curious. We are passionate about hiring fantastic individuals who thrive in an open, fast-paced and collaborative environment, are accountable to themselves, and are willing to roll their sleeves up to get stuff done.

There are certain behaviors we expect from our colleagues, and the key ones are below. Fundamentally we expect everyone at Get Licensed to Do The Right Thing. We measure performance against these behaviors as part of each team member's monthly performance review:

• Agility:
  We move fast, adapt quickly, and continuously improve.
• Curiosity:
  We never stop learning and seeking better ways to do things.
• Excellence:
  We set new standards and strive to exceed expectations.
• Love:
  We care deeply for the work we do, for each other, and for our customers.

What We Offer:

• Competitive base salary with additional benefits, including private medical insurance, and paid holiday.
• Unlimited opportunities for career growth and professional development
• The chance to influence and improve training delivery across the organization.
• Join a dedicated and professional team where your ideas are welcomed and your commitment rewarded.
• As the face of Get Licensed, you will be required to lead by example, and live the Get Licensed values to their fullest, based around Doing the Right Thing.