Senior Director Engineering – Manufacturing
IFS · United Kingdom · 1mo ago
Company Description
IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. Our leading AI technology is the backbone of our award-winning enterprise software solutions, enabling our customers to be their best when it really matters–at the Moment of Service™. Our commitment to internal AI adoption has allowed us to stay at the forefront of technological advancements, ensuring our colleagues can unlock their creativity and productivity, and our solutions are always cutting-edge.
At IFS, we’re flexible, we’re innovative, and we’re focused not only on how we can engage with our customers but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society’s greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust.
We celebrate diversity and understand our responsibility to reflect the diverse world we work in. We are committed to promoting an inclusive workforce that fully represents the many different cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints of our customers, our partners, and our communities. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realize that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view.
By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world.
We’re looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. With the power of our AI-driven solutions, we empower our team to change the status quo and make a real difference.
If you want to change the status quo, we’ll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.
Job Description
We are looking for a Senior Engineering Leader to lead in the Manufacturing Product organization at IFS. This role operates at a strategic and organizational level, overseeing a multi-layered engineering organization comprising Engineering Directors, Architects, and Principal Engineers.
You will be responsible for defining and executing engineering strategy across multiple teams and domains, ensuring alignment with product vision, architecture direction, and business priorities.
While this is a senior leadership role, technical depth and sound engineering judgment remain critical. You are expected to guide architectural direction, influence key technical decisions, and ensure strong engineering discipline across the organization.
AI is a core enabler and strategic priority in this role. You will drive enterprise-wide adoption of AI-assisted engineering and AI-powered product capabilities, ensuring measurable impact on both engineering productivity and customer value.
What You’ll Do
Organizational Leadership
Lead a multi-layered engineering organization, including Engineering Directors, Architects, and Principal Engineers
Define and execute the engineering strategy for Manufacturing, aligned with product and company-wide technology direction
Drive organizational design, capability building, and succession planning
Build a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement
Scale leadership capability by coaching and developing leaders of leaders
Delivery and Execution
Own delivery outcomes across multiple teams, ensuring predictability, quality, and timely execution at scale
Establish and evolve consistent engineering operating models and execution practices
Balance business priorities, technical investments, and operational excellence
Ensure teams operate with a “you build it, you run it” mindset
Technical & Architectural Leadership
Provide strategic technical direction across teams, in close collaboration with Architecture
Influence and governing architecture decisions, platform evolution, and system design standards
Ensure high standards across:
Cloud-native architecture
CI/CD and DevOps practices
Automated testing, observability, and security
Maintain strong technical credibility and intervene hands-on where it adds the most value
AI Leadership
Drive organization-wide adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices
Enable teams to improve delivery speed, quality, and confidence using AI
Guide development of AI-enabled Manufacturing capabilities
Ensure AI usage is practical, responsible, and outcome-driven
Cross-functional Collaboration
Partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, and Manufacturing domain leaders
Aligning engineering execution with business priorities and customer outcomes
Represent Engineering in senior leadership and strategic forums
Manufacturing Domain Leadership
Provide strong leadership across key Manufacturing domains, including:
End-to-end Manufacturing lifecycle (Plan, Build, Quality, Maintain
Regulatory and industry-specific requirements
Large-scale, configurable, multi-tenant Manufacturing Solutions
Aligning Manufacturing strategy with platform, data, and integration capabilities
Required Background
Strong foundation in software engineering and enterprise application development
Extensive experience leading leaders (Directors/Managers) and senior technical experts
Proven track record delivering large-scale, complex software systems across multiple teams
Deep understanding of modern architectures (cloud-native, APIs, distributed systems, agentic workflows)
Ability to operate effectively at both strategic and technical levels
Strong communication, decision-making, and stakeholder management skills
Customer obsession, ability to work hands on with customers on site, including travel to key manufacturing customer locations.
Qualifications
Preferred Experience
Manufacturing, ERP, or industrial enterprise software
Platform or multi-product engineering leadership
Experience scaling engineering organizations and driving transformation
AI-enabled enterprise product development
Executive-level stakeholder engagement
What We’re Looking For
You balance strategic leadership with strong technical depth
You lead leaders and build high-performing organizations
You create clarity and alignment while empowering teams to succeed
You care deeply about quality, sustainability, and customer value
You see AI as a practical enabler of transformation
You scale impact by enabling others, not controlling them
Additional Information
Interviews and selections are being made continuously. If you are interested, apply as soon as possible.
As a step in our recruitment process, all final candidates will undergo a background check, to get us an understanding of our future employees.
We respectfully decline all offers of recruitment and/or advertising assistance.
IFS Fact
IFS develops and delivers enterprise software for customers around the world who manufacture and distribute goods, build and maintain assets, and manage service-focused operations. The industry expertise of our people and solutions, together with a commitment to delivering value to every one of our customers, has made IFS a recognized leader and the most recommended supplier in our sector. Our team of 7,000+ employees and growing ecosystem of partners support more than 10,000 customers around the world challenge the status quo and realize their competitive advantage. Learn more about how our enterprise software solutions can help your business today at ifs.com.
We believe that coming together as a community, in person, is important for innovation, connection and fostering a sense of belonging. Our roles have the right balance of remote and in-office working to enable flexibility for managing your life along with ensuring a real connection with your colleagues and the broader IFS community.