Technical Director

The role IF is increasingly been asked to help organisations design and build trustworthy AI-enabled products and services. To address this need, we’re looking for a Technical Director to join our small but growing team. As a Technical Director you will be responsible for shaping, supporting and growing our approach to technology within our client work. This will require you to straddle technical strategy and delivery, hire and manage our technical practitioners (perm and freelance), and work across multi-disciplinary project teams to deliver working prototypes, proof of concepts and pilots. As a Director, you will also play a key role helping IF win new work and build strong relationships with clients, as well as contributing to broader new business and marketing efforts. Project delivery You will provide strategic technical guidance across multiple projects. This will involve shaping the overall technology approach, helping the team understand the relevant technical opportunities, challenges and trade-offs, and ensuring a strong and coherent technical narrative within our project work, and helping teams articulate the role of technology clearly to clients. You will support engineers and technical practitioners on projects teams, helping them work effectively with the rest of the team, and providing clarity and confidence as the senior technical voice across projects. While the main focus of your role will be at a strategic level, you will sometimes play a hands on role, working with the broader team on specific technical deliverables You will ensure that project teams deliver high-quality technical deliverables that align to agreed outcomes. Business development You will help qualify, shape and respond to incoming new business, identifying opportunities to sell our technical capabilities You will build relationships across industries and widen the reach of the IF brand to make sure our technical capabilities are understood and sought by potential clients. You will work with teams to look for opportunities to use our technical capabilities to extend work or start new streams, helping us deepen and widen our relationships with clients and opening up opportunities for IF to play a new roles across programmes of work. You will contribute to IF’s thought leadership content: writing blogs, conceptualising frameworks based on our continued findings, and growing our set of tools used by practitioners globally. The company You will ensure that the whole company understands the role of technology and its role in allowing us to deliver impactful client work. You be accountable for the hiring of new engineers and technologists (perm and freelance), ensuring we’re building a high-quality technical capability that enables us to deliver great work. You will lead the development of IF’s technical practice, working with the team to create the necessary guidance, processes and tools. You will coach and give regular feedback to teams, driving performance through our people and supporting their progression while at IF. About you You have an engineering background with hands on experience launching and supporting multiple digital products and services You have a breadth of experience working with different AI solutions and technologies. You have a solid understanding of both the theory and the practice. You have experience supporting and managing senior engineers / technical practitioners, working within multi-disciplinary teams You are confident shaping technical strategy and defining technical architectures You have experience in consulting and are comfortable leading client sessions You have experience coaching and developing a practice of technical practitioners You have a clear picture of what good looks like and how to put the right processes and tools in place to ensure consistent high-quality technical deliverables You are commercially minded and understand how to define a technology approach that aligns with a organisation’s strategy and budget You have a track record of helping win new work for a consultancy You have an interest in and experience of speaking at conferences, engaging in communities of interest and contributing to open source projects. You’re a low ego, compassionate individual who wants to work hard within an environment that genuinely cares about its people and the impact we have on the world. You’re a positive influence within work cultures. You bring focus and clarity to teams, and cultivate and support how values show up in work and behaviours. You’re a brilliant communicator: able to craft compelling stories, present work and thinking with clarity of thought, and write succinctly. You enable healthy team dynamics which creates an environment that surfaces critical opinions across the team to support good decision making. Your location IF is based in London and we’re looking for someone based here or within commutable distance. We’re largely a remote-first team and currently spend Wednesdays together in a studio in Shoreditch. We also spend some time with clients but plan this to be infrequent and valuable. Client-facing work requires flexibility but we’re designing a setup to enable deep-work and balance. The hiring process You’re likely to meet one member of the team at each stage because we’re a small team. We may use an AI notetaking service to assist your interviewer in capturing the conversation. We will ask that you walk us through some work at each stage, varying in depth and focus depending on the stage and who you’re meeting. We’ll share more during the process so that you can prepare. An initial 30 minute introductory call to discuss the role, your experience and ensure alignment. A 60 minute interview to discuss your background in more detail. We’ll dig into your work and also ask some questions based on real-world IF context. A take-home brief, this allows you to get close to our work and the IF team to better understand your thinking. A 60 minute interview to discuss your brief, as well as your ways of working, motivations and working at IF. Salary and benefits The salary band for this role is £110,000-£125,000. We’ll assess experience throughout the interview process to determine where within this band you would join. Our benefits also include: A time off allowance of 25 days each calendar year, in addition to bank holidays (which typically tops this up to around 33 days). Christmas closure. The dates for this differ each year but we’re offline between Christmas and New Year to enjoy this busy holiday season. We also aim to schedule a week-long summer closure each year, to all be offline during the warmer months, putting on the collective breaks and pausing all notifications. 5 days of paid emergency carers leave. Last minute caring responsibilities need to be prioritised and this leave is there to support you taking the time you need. Enhanced parental leave for all genders and routes to becoming a parent. A proactive and considered approach to balancing work and life. You can read more about our team-wide practices below, and this is teamed up with an openness to understanding and supporting individual needs. Working at IF We encourage a balanced way of working. We’re ambitious, hardworking and constantly juggling the demands of our work. However, we also offer flexibility and a deep appreciation of life outside of work. We’re creating an environment where you will do some of the most fulfilling work of your career and with that comes a deep commitment to our collective network’s care and wellbeing. Our core hours are 10:00-16:00, Monday to Friday. This is when we schedule meetings and expect people to be reachable. Outside of that, you’re encouraged to design your day around your needs. Focus Fridays. Fridays at IF are meeting free by default and are a deliberate part of how we work. The day is yours to use for focused work, thinking time, and wrapping up the week in a way that works for you. Thoughtful approach to sync vs. async work. To deliver our expertise we must carve out time for deep-work. How we communicate, document and spend time together is thoughtfully designed and iterated upon.