Description review
Head of Engineering | xpate
Hirehire · Remote · back to the listing
HR standards
61/100
needs work
Title ↔ description
80/100
solid
Reads as
Engineering Manager
97% confident
What this role officially is
software manager — ESCO, the EU occupation classification
Software managers oversee the acquisition and development of software systems in order to provide support to all organisational units. They also monitor the results and quality of the different software solutions and projects implemented in the organisation.
Also known as: applications manager, software managers, ICT applications manager, software applications manager, soft manager
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What the listing never says
- 24 bullet points. Long requirement lists deter qualified candidates, who read them as hard gates. Scope clarity
- No pay range published. Candidates cannot tell whether applying is worth their time. Pay transparency
The listing, marked up
Nothing in the wording of this listing tripped a check. The scores above still judge how complete and coherent it is.
Role: Head of Engineering
Company: xpate
Location: London or remote
Job Type: Full-time
About xpate
xpate has been a card acquirer since 2019. It combines acquiring and banking for B2B clients only, with €100M+ in annual revenue. About 100 people work there, around 15 of them in engineering. HQ is in London, and the team is spread across Latvia, Cyprus, Serbia and Singapore.
The business is changing. xpate is moving from direct sales to distribution through platforms and partners: embedded finance and Payfac-as-a-Service. The platform has to change with it. Tooling, data flow, processes and the release cycle all need a rebuild, and much of the workflow is still tracked by hand.
xpate also wants to become AI-native. Guardrails go around the core – the data layer and financial data – so it can’t be lost, rewritten or broken. Everything else runs through an agentic harness on top, so non-engineering teams can build their own tools by prompting agents.
What you will do
• Lead the platform and organizational transformation from the inside, together with the current team.
• Own the whole technical picture: infrastructure, architecture and vendors.
• Replace the traditional PM → engineer handoff. Test the idea that engineering and product can work as one, with engineers talking directly to the business and domain experts.
• Move code writing to LLMs with automated QA. Start where mistakes are cheap and reach the critical financial components later.
• Hire engineers who talk to people and ask questions, not only write code. You can bring in 1–2 people who share the vision.
• Focus on internal efficiency. The business sets the direction – the job is not to set a product or market vision of your own.
First 6 months
• Months 1–3: bring all data flow – customer, financial and manual – into one clear perimeter.
• Months 4–6: build the harness on top, so non-engineering teams can prompt agents, create their own tools and run their workflows.
What you need to succeed
• You have built financial systems: ledger, reconciliation, processing, gateway, double-entry accounting. Ideally you wrote them yourself, and you know what a few cents of error cost at scale.
• You have a strong data architecture background.
• You can hold the full technical picture: infrastructure, architecture and vendors.
• You are a senior engineer with proven results. Team size doesn’t matter – leading 4–5 people is fine.
• You know code quality and review still matter, and you are ready to change how the work gets done.
• You think and talk like a business person.
• You are a mature operator: collaborative, transparent, no “I know best”. You change things carefully and still make bold calls.
• Payments or acquiring background is not required – any financial systems experience works.
• Nice to have: you have rebuilt or transformed a team before.
• Nice to have: you are based in London.
What you get
• A new role with a clear mission: transform the platform and the way the company works.
• Direct work with the founders, reporting to the CEO.
• A team of about 15 engineers to inherit and reshape.
• A profitable company moving into Payfac-as-a-Service and embedded distribution.
• An AI-native setup where non-engineers build their own tools.
• Year 1 is fixed pay. From year 2, shadow equity tied to P&L performance, with a path to real equity. Details to be agreed.
Company: xpate
Location: London or remote
Job Type: Full-time
About xpate
xpate has been a card acquirer since 2019. It combines acquiring and banking for B2B clients only, with €100M+ in annual revenue. About 100 people work there, around 15 of them in engineering. HQ is in London, and the team is spread across Latvia, Cyprus, Serbia and Singapore.
The business is changing. xpate is moving from direct sales to distribution through platforms and partners: embedded finance and Payfac-as-a-Service. The platform has to change with it. Tooling, data flow, processes and the release cycle all need a rebuild, and much of the workflow is still tracked by hand.
xpate also wants to become AI-native. Guardrails go around the core – the data layer and financial data – so it can’t be lost, rewritten or broken. Everything else runs through an agentic harness on top, so non-engineering teams can build their own tools by prompting agents.
What you will do
• Lead the platform and organizational transformation from the inside, together with the current team.
• Own the whole technical picture: infrastructure, architecture and vendors.
• Replace the traditional PM → engineer handoff. Test the idea that engineering and product can work as one, with engineers talking directly to the business and domain experts.
• Move code writing to LLMs with automated QA. Start where mistakes are cheap and reach the critical financial components later.
• Hire engineers who talk to people and ask questions, not only write code. You can bring in 1–2 people who share the vision.
• Focus on internal efficiency. The business sets the direction – the job is not to set a product or market vision of your own.
First 6 months
• Months 1–3: bring all data flow – customer, financial and manual – into one clear perimeter.
• Months 4–6: build the harness on top, so non-engineering teams can prompt agents, create their own tools and run their workflows.
What you need to succeed
• You have built financial systems: ledger, reconciliation, processing, gateway, double-entry accounting. Ideally you wrote them yourself, and you know what a few cents of error cost at scale.
• You have a strong data architecture background.
• You can hold the full technical picture: infrastructure, architecture and vendors.
• You are a senior engineer with proven results. Team size doesn’t matter – leading 4–5 people is fine.
• You know code quality and review still matter, and you are ready to change how the work gets done.
• You think and talk like a business person.
• You are a mature operator: collaborative, transparent, no “I know best”. You change things carefully and still make bold calls.
• Payments or acquiring background is not required – any financial systems experience works.
• Nice to have: you have rebuilt or transformed a team before.
• Nice to have: you are based in London.
What you get
• A new role with a clear mission: transform the platform and the way the company works.
• Direct work with the founders, reporting to the CEO.
• A team of about 15 engineers to inherit and reshape.
• A profitable company moving into Payfac-as-a-Service and embedded distribution.
• An AI-native setup where non-engineers build their own tools.
• Year 1 is fixed pay. From year 2, shadow equity tied to P&L performance, with a path to real equity. Details to be agreed.