Vertical Technology Lead – Policy & National Security (AI)

Location: London, United Kingdom, with hybrid working; candidates must be based in the UK, within commuting distance of the London office, and available for customer-site work when required.

Salary: £170,000 gross annual base salary + performance bonus and stock/equity participation.

Company

An international technology company developing an AI-powered platform for governments and enterprises to address global supply chains, international trade and national security challenges.

What you will do

• Own technical strategy, solution architecture and delivery outcomes across the Policy & National Security vertical.
• Lead technical and operational aspects of government proposals, bids and capture activities, including solution design, security, staffing and delivery planning.
• Oversee complex government implementations, operational processes, security, accreditation, procurement and regulatory compliance.
• Lead, hire and develop technical delivery teams while managing resource allocation, priorities and quality across multiple customer programmes.
• Act as a senior technical partner to government, defence and national security stakeholders, collaborating with commercial, engineering, product and platform operations teams.
• Build scalable delivery processes and operational structures for the long-term growth of the vertical.

Requirements

• 12+ years of technical experience, including leadership of technical teams and complex customer-facing implementations.
• Strong public sector technology delivery background, particularly in defence, intelligence, government or national security.
• Experience managing operational systems and technical programmes for government customers beyond initial implementation.
• Experience leading technical proposals, bids or capture activities, including solution architecture, security, staffing and operational planning.
• Strong understanding of solution architecture, cloud technologies, data engineering, system integrations and secure deployments.
• Experience leading, hiring and developing technical delivery teams.
• Understanding of government procurement, cybersecurity and compliance requirements in regulated or classified environments.
• Ability to translate technical capabilities into viable customer solutions and communicate with senior government and executive stakeholders.
• Strategic and autonomous approach to managing complex programmes with evolving requirements.
• Based in the UK with the right to work; willing to work onsite with customers when required.
• Must hold, or be eligible and willing to obtain, UK Security Check (SC) clearance.

Nice to have

• Existing UK SC or Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance.
• Direct experience with the UK Ministry of Defence, Home Office or intelligence community.
• Government technology consulting, systems integration or defence technology background.
• Experience with AWS, Azure, Databricks, Spark, Kubernetes or similar technologies.
• Responsibility for technical capture targets, proposals or commercial expansion.
• Experience building or scaling technical delivery organisations.
• Senior technical consulting leadership, professional services or public sector solution architecture background.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid working flexibility in London with customer-site work as required.
• Director-level responsibility with significant autonomy and influence.
• Performance bonus and stock/equity participation.
• Opportunity to lead technical delivery across strategically important national security programmes and build a technical delivery team.
• Close collaboration with senior leadership, engineering and commercial teams.
• Exposure to advanced AI technology and mission-critical government environments, with long-term career growth opportunities.