Head of Engineering, POS Application Platform

About This Opportunity

Our talent team at Get A Job.ai is representing a confidential fintech organization seeking a Head of Engineering, POS Application Platform to lead their device engineering infrastructure from London (remote-friendly).

Our client powers millions of point-of-sale transactions across multiple markets in Africa and is expanding internationally. They're building a dedicated platform engineering function—the foundational Kotlin-based layer that sits beneath every POS product in their ecosystem. This is the technical backbone that all POS engineers build upon: the standards, frameworks, tooling, and architecture that enable device reliability at scale.

You'll own the engineering platform for Android-based POS devices across multiple OEM manufacturers, governing developer experience, platform reliability, foundational frameworks, and adoption across distributed product squads. This is a platform team in the truest sense—not feature development, but the operating system for an entire POS engineering organization.

Responsibilities

• Own technical strategy and architecture for the POS Application Platform, acting as domain CTO for all device-layer engineering
• Build and govern four core platform pillars: developer experience (tools, libraries, SDKs), platform reliability (observability, uptime, quality), foundational frameworks (architecture, standards, CI/CD), and squad adoption across embedded POS engineers
• Define and enforce engineering standards across all POS device types and OEM manufacturers, ensuring architectural consistency across a heterogeneous device fleet
• Functionally lead POS engineers embedded in Payments, Onboarding, VAS, Savings, and Loans squads—setting quality standards and providing the platform layer for all teams
• Own end-to-end POS observability: monitoring, alerting, and incident response frameworks ensuring platform health across all devices and squads
• Drive architecture for supporting multiple POS device types, including governance for how new devices are onboarded and integrated
• Collaborate with OEM partners and hardware teams when introducing new device types, ensuring application layer readiness from day one
• Build and scale the POS platform team through hiring, mentoring, and structuring for international growth
• Translate platform decisions into business impact, working with Product, Payments, and Business leadership across markets
• Establish and improve engineering processes, tooling standards, CI/CD pipelines, and developer productivity metrics across the POS engineering community

What We're Looking For

Essential Requirements:

• Minimum 10 years hands-on software engineering experience with at least 6 years leading engineering teams through growth phases, ideally at multi-national or large VC-backed companies
• Direct, hands-on experience building software that runs on Point-of-Sale terminal devices—engineering on the device application layer itself, not server-side integrations (non-negotiable)
• Strong working knowledge of EMV standards (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) and experience with payment certification processes such as PCI DSS and P2PE (non-negotiable)
• Deep Android engineering expertise in Kotlin and Java—the platform is Android-based with no exceptions
• Proven experience building internal engineering platforms, shared libraries, developer tooling, or foundational frameworks used by other engineering teams
• Experience governing or architecting across multiple POS device types from different hardware manufacturers, with understanding of OEM integrations and device management at scale
• Experience building or maturing platform engineering functions, including establishing engineering processes, tooling strategies, and cross-squad governance
• Demonstrated ability to scale engineering teams and build organizational layers—leaders who can grow into and around the role
• Experience at a company processing high volumes of financial transactions in a regulated environment; fintech background strongly preferred

Strong Advantages:

• Familiarity with terminal management systems and device observability tooling
• Backend engineering experience in Java or Spring Boot given platform breadth and integration surface
• Experience working directly with OEM vendors on hardware specification and integration
• Exposure to C or C++ (one device variant uses C)

Technologies You'll Work With:

• Android (Kotlin, Java) - primary POS application development platform
• EMV payment standards and PCI/P2PE certification frameworks
• Multiple POS device types and OEM manufacturers
• Terminal management systems and device observability tooling
• Java, Spring Boot for backend services and integration
• Docker and Kubernetes
• PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Elasticsearch
• Microservices architecture on AWS

Cultural Fit:

Our client assesses candidates across eight leadership dimensions: Customer Obsession, Craft, Systemisation, Urgency, Ownership, No Ego, Candour, and Integrity. They value deep empathy for users, first-principles thinking, scalable mechanisms over ad-hoc decisions, disciplined speed, cross-boundary initiative, mission-first mindset, early risk surfacing, and ethical consistency.

How We Work With You

When you apply through Get A Job.ai, our recruiting team will screen your background against these requirements and coordinate your interview process with our client. The process includes:

• Stage 1: Preliminary phone call with our client's recruiter
• Stage 2: Technical round focused on Android/Kotlin depth
• Stage 3: System design assessment with focus on POS and mobile platform architecture and payment systems
• Stage 4: Technical and architectural leadership interview with Head of Engineering
• Stage 5: CTO interview assessing first-principles thinking, problem-solving under ambiguity, and cultural alignment

Please do not contact the client directly. All applications must come through Get A Job.ai to be considered. Apply on our platform and we'll guide you through each stage.

Pay

Compensation details will be discussed during the screening process and are competitive for this senior leadership role in London's fintech market.

Equal Opportunity: Get A Job.ai and our clients are committed to diversity and inclusion. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of background.