Head of Engineering

About This Opportunity

We are representing a confidential technology consultancy seeking a Head of Engineering to lead their AI-focused engineering practice in France. This is a senior operational leadership role reporting to the CTO, responsible for translating strategic vision into daily execution across client-facing and product teams.

As the operational engine of the engineering organization, you will own team health, engineering standards, roadmap execution, and the development of AI engineers. You will be the technical authority teams rely on to unblock challenges and drive growth, while maintaining the highest delivery standards across all engagements.

Responsibilities

• Deploy and govern AI technology roadmap across all squads: architecture standards, AI governance, factory standards for agents, prompts, rules, and pipelines
• Own token economics of delivery, balancing model cost, latency and quality to ensure production-grade AI systems
• Operate above Lead Engineers: arbitrate technical divergences, challenge decisions, identify systemic debt, and maintain rising quality standards
• Deploy as senior technical authority on complex client engagements; design AI-first architectures and deliver to production
• Step in as Tech Lead on client projects when required, ensuring continuity and quality
• Define and enforce engineering standards: CI/CD practices, code reviews, incident management, and security posture
• Directly manage Forward Deployed Engineers: growth, performance, workload and career development
• Own engineering community rituals: critiques, showcases, community days, learning circles, and shared knowledge systems
• Foster cross-project collaboration, surface reusable patterns, and convert field learnings into shared standards
• Build mentorship structures and learning pathways for senior engineers and forward deployed engineers
• Operate hiring process for engineering roles: sourcing strategy, interviews, technical assessments and recommendations
• Partner with delivery and staffing teams on capacity planning and utilization
• Produce and own engineering KPIs: velocity, quality, incident rate, technical debt, and team health
• Contribute to pre-sales through technical scoping, estimation, and proposal input

What We're Looking For

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant leadership of engineering organizations (VP Engineering, Head of Engineering, Head of Tech, or CTO of scale-up)
• Production-grade AI systems delivery: LLM integration, RAG pipelines, agent orchestration with understanding of token economics (cost, latency, quality tradeoffs)
• Mastery of AI coding assistants as force multipliers; you still code by choice
• Client-facing delivery experience in complex environments: consulting, embedded squads, platform modernization with real users and constraints
• Proven people development track record: scaling engineering practices through mentorship, community-building and hands-on AI adoption
• Systems thinking and documentation skills: architecture decisions under uncertainty, ADRs, reproducible quality standards
• Multi-altitude fluency: comfortable moving between engineering stand-ups and leadership forums
• Team health awareness: ability to read early signals of engagement, workload imbalance, burnout risk, and act with care and clarity
• Tech for Good mindset: sustainability, accessibility and responsible AI embedded in how you build
• HR partnership experience: hiring strategy, interviews, portfolio reviews, offer decisions and talent-pipeline building
• Bilingual French/English required for client and international collaboration
• Nice to have: cloud architecture certifications (AWS SA, GCP/Azure Professional), public speaking or publications on AI-first delivery

How We Work With You

When you apply through Get A Job.ai, a member of our talent team will review your profile and conduct an initial screening. If there's a strong match, we'll submit your candidacy to our client for consideration. Please apply exclusively through our platform—direct contact with the client is not part of this process.

Our recruiting team will keep you informed at every stage and serve as your advocate throughout the interview process.

Pay

Compensation details will be discussed during the screening process based on experience and qualifications.

Equal Opportunity

Get A Job.ai is committed to fair and equitable recruiting practices. We evaluate all candidates based on qualifications and merit, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other protected characteristic.