Head of Engineering

Background

Specsavers founders recently invested in IDOC a US business alliance of independent optometrists, to further their organisational purpose of changing lives through better sight. IDOC exists to support independent optometrists in running their businesses, through providing high quality, affordable products, digital tools and business services and this role is being created to accelerate progress within the provision of digital tools for optometrists and their patients.

The Role

Are you ready to build something new, at scale, within our North American business, we're creating something genuinely exciting, new digital platforms that are reimagining eye care and we're looking for a UK-based Head of Engineering to lead the journey.

You'll be working within a Specsavers Group company, on cutting-edge, startup-style initiatives, helping to build and scale the technology powering our US platform. It's a unique blend, backed by the strength of a global organisation, but with the pace, autonomy, and innovation you'd expect from a high-growth product environment.

As our engineering leader for the US, you'll take ownership of how we build, run, and scale our digital platforms. You'll lead a multidisciplinary team across backend, frontend, design and DevOps, shaping engineering standards, driving delivery, and creating a high-performing, high-trust culture. This platform has moved beyond early build and is now entering a critical phase of growth, stabilisation, and scale. Your ability to bring structure, clarity, and quality will be key.

What you will bring

You'll thrive in this role if you're comfortable operating both strategically and hands-on. You'll set development standards, strengthen testing and release practices, and ensure robust observability and production operations. You'll work closely with product and design to keep delivery predictable and aligned to business outcomes, while collaborating with architecture, data, and integration teams to ensure everything scales effectively.

What makes this role stand out is the environment. You'll be working

with teams spanning multiple time zones, primarily in the UK and the USA, so flexibility in working hours is important. In return, you'll have the autonomy to shape how engineering of these products is done, support a distributed team, and build something that has real-world impact on healthcare and patient experiences.

We're looking for someone who has already led engineering teams delivering modern SaaS platforms, with a strong technical foundation in distributed systems and scalable architectures. Experience across technologies such as JavaScript, Node, APIs (GraphQL/REST), cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, and observability will set you up for success.

Just as importantly, you'll bring a pragmatic leadership style. Someone who can build trust, develop people, and make good decisions in complex environments.

If you're excited by the idea of combining the stability of a global organisation with the pace and innovation of a startup and playing a key role in building the future of digital eye care, this is your opportunity. Join us as our Head of Engineering (US) and help shape technology that will support delivery of our purpose. define the next generation of Specsavers.

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