Head of Engineering (Remote - Work from Anywhere)

Gibraltar - Remote

Work from anywhere, impact everywhere

Diversity is at the heart of who we are at Xapo Bank. We’re a fully distributed team of over 160 Xapiens that work remotely from 50+ countries around the world. Our beginning: A world that enjoys economic freedom and wealth protection,no matter where you live or who is running your country. To achieve that, we search the world for the best people for the job. We work hard, think globally, and inspire each other to learn and grow. We are committed to changing the way things are done. Although we are headquartered in Gibraltar, this is a full time, 100% remote position Work from anywhere!

Position overview

We're creating the role of Head of Engineering, reporting directly to the CTO. This is a new function-level leadership role, built as we scale engineering across three product tribes, Growth, Payments, and Assets Under Management, each run day-to-day by an Engineering Manager. You own how engineering operates: the standards, the practice, the people, and the delivery. You give the engineering function a single accountable leader for how we build software and for the bar we hold it to, working in close partnership with Architecture, Quality Engineering, Security, Frontend Engineering, and Platform Engineering. This is a true function head, not a senior IC with a management title. You set engineering standards across the function and own the unified Software Development Lifecycle end to end. You own how material backend changes are reviewed, approved, and audited. You own the engineering tech-debt roadmap and the people leadership of the Engineering Managers who run delivery in each tribe. The authority to set the engineering bar sits with this role and so does the accountability for the result. That accountability is concrete. We measure the function on predictable delivery: consistently shipping committed scope on committed dates, with a 90% target as the bar. Hitting it is not the job in itself, it's the output of an engineering organisation that estimates honestly, surfaces risk early, and clears blockers with discipline. Building and running that organisation is the job. We are a Bitcoin-native, regulated bank. A defect here can move customer Bitcoin and customer Dollars, under the scrutiny of two regulators. That raises the bar on everything engineering does, change management, incident response, observability, and audit-readiness are not overhead, they are the standard the role exists to uphold. The right person is drawn to that, not deterred by it.

What you own, and what you partner on

You own:

• The unified Software Development Lifecycle: you define it, evolve it, and own its governance and enforcement. EMs run it day-to-day in their tribes.
• Engineering standards and practice across the function: code review, retrospectives,...