Head of Engineering & Data (AI)

Location: Glasgow, UK; hybrid work with home working and 3 days per week in the Glasgow hub

Salary: c£100K+ dependent on experience

Company

hirify.global is a scaling adventure tour operator and tech-enabled active-travel company serving more than 40,000 customers with self-guided walking and cycling trips worldwide.

What you will do

• Own technical architecture, the system map, integration standards, and architecture decision records.
• Strengthen the stability, reliability, security, compliance, and resilience of core technology platforms.
• Lead technology selection and integration across internal squads and external development partners.
• Own the data platform and BI estate, creating a trusted source of information for marketing technology and customer-facing products.
• Identify and deliver AI opportunities across people, processes, and products with measurable targets.
• Set engineering standards, oversee cloud infrastructure and suppliers, and coach a small team of engineering and data specialists.

Requirements

• Experience as a senior engineering leader, such as Head of Engineering, VP Engineering, or similar, comfortable being the most senior technologist in the business.
• Strong judgement in choosing and integrating third-party platforms, building internally only where it creates meaningful differentiation.
• Track record working with external development partners, including de-risking or replacing a critical system without disrupting the business.
• Technical depth across cloud, integration, and data architecture, with enough hands-on knowledge to challenge partners and investigate details without needing to write code.
• Ownership of a data platform and BI estate alongside engineering responsibilities.
• Experience driving AI adoption across people, processes, and products with measurable results.
• Solid security, compliance, and resilience fundamentals.
• Ability to document decisions and explain architecture to leaders, partners, and investors.
• Coaching leadership style focused on developing small, senior teams.

Nice to have

• Experience in consumer digital, e-commerce, or travel scale-ups.
• Delivered measurable AI impact, including AI agents, agent-ready APIs, or AI in customer-facing products.
• Experience combining structured and unstructured data for natural-language queries by people and AI agents.
• ERP, CRS, or CRM platform evaluation experience.
• AWS or Azure cloud consolidation experience.
• Experience supporting investor technical due diligence.
• Interest in outdoor activities, walking, cycling, or active travel.

Culture & Benefits

• Flexible hybrid working with home working and collaboration in the Glasgow hub 3 days per week.
• 33 days of annual leave including 8 public holidays, increasing to 35 days after 5 years, plus a birthday day off.
• Contributory pension, worldwide travel insurance for the employee and family, and discounts on hirify.global trips.
• Innovative, fast-growth, international, inclusive, and solution-focused working environment with regular meetings and retreats.
• Self-guided learning support, wellbeing support, and opportunities to make an impact on people and the planet.
• Occasional international travel may be required.