Technical Director

• Are you curious, excited by experimentation and always looking for a better way of doing things?
• Do you want to keep learning and developing whilst getting hands-on, entrepreneurial, business building experience?
• Do you want to have the opportunity to lead Hive Learning, a BC EdTech venture, through its next phase of rapid growth?

If so, we would love to hear from you!

ABOUT US AND OUR INVESTORS 

Hive Learning is an innovative fast growing enterprise SAAS Skills academy platform providing solutions for the HR Tech sector. We specialise in delivering cutting-edge learning solutions that disrupt the current L&D market for large corporate organisations globally. Our customers include; Barclays, NHS, Virgin Money, National Grid and Boots.

Our investors Blenheim Chalcot are one of the leading venture builders in the world. Headquartered in London from their flagship White City Scale Space campus, we have been building exciting and disruptive businesses for over 20 years. Blenheim Chalcot is responsible for building some of the most innovative companies in the UK and increasingly around the world – with significant operations in India and the US, as well as emerging operations in Europe and Southeast Asia.

IMPACT BEYOND PROFIT

15% of Blenheim Chalcot's partnerships and ventures are charities. These include the British Asian Trust, BabyZone and Onside Youth Zones. In the same way that we support our ventures, our Partners and VBS provide direct hands-on support to these charities by being active board members and offering expert advice.

THE ROLE

Key responsibilities

The Technical Director a vital role within Hive Learning. The role will report into the CEO and be a key part of the team that leads Hive through this next phase of rapid growth.

The successful Technical Director will be at the forefront of setting the direction of the technical vision and ensuring that Hive Learnings technical operations are delivered effectively and efficiently, whilst addressing key technical challenges and opportunities. Working very closely with our customers you will work to understand the core requirements for our platform to operate safely, securely and effectively within their digital environments.

Specific duties

The Technical Director will have a collaborative role working across many teams and customer groups.

These will include:  

• Working closely with the CEO to develop and align a clear technical vision and direction for the platform, ensuring alignment with company goals.
• Overseeing the UK and India Engineering team to monitor and ensure smooth operation of technical aspects of the platform.
• Collaborating with engineering and product to ensure seamless execution of technical strategies.
• Working closely with various departments including Product, RND, Engineering, Customer Support and Sales to ensure technical coherence and efficiency.

Key responsibilities will include but not be limited to the below.

• Strategic technical leadership - develop and articulate a clear technical vision and direction for the platform, ensuring alignment with the company's business goals and customer needs.
• Issue identification and resolution - proactively identify technical issues and bottlenecks that may impact product performance or customer experience. Facilitate the development of solutions without directly engaging in engineering tasks.
• Technology trends and innovation - stay abreast of emerging technology trends and innovations in the SaaS and ed-tech space. Advise on potential opportunities for platform enhancement and innovation.
• Stakeholder communication - effectively communicate technical strategies and updates to internal stakeholders and external partners, ensuring clarity and alignment.
• Risk management and compliance - oversee technical risk management strategies and ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations.

Day to day responsibilities.

• Ensure adherence to best practices for software development, including code reviews, automated testing, and DevOps principles.
• Work with our commercial team and enterprise customers to deliver a safe and secure platform.
• Be customer facing in technical conversations supporting the onboarding of Hive as a platform in large complex organisations.
• Ensure our technology practices comply with regulatory standards.
• Advocate Agile and Lean methodologies, facilitating continuous integration and delivery, and encouraging a mindset of continuous improvement.
• Work with engineer team globally to direct the architecture, development, quality, reliability and operation of our learning platform, ensuring robust performance and alignment with business goals.
• Manage the engineering budget, delivering projects on time and within allocated resources.
• Mentor and develop team members, identifying opportunities for growth and facilitating career development.

ABOUT YOU

The ideal candidate will have a track-record in delivering results in a fast-moving business and hence be comfortable with change and uncertainty. Excellent stakeholder management experience is essential to being successful in this role.

Qualifications and experience required include:

• A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing engineering teams.
• Demonstrable experience with microservices architecture and AWS cloud services.
• Familiarity with a range of programming languages and frameworks relevant to our stack, including but not limited to Python, React, GraphQL.
• Proven success in delivering complex, high-priority projects with significant impact.
• Strong understanding of the Agile development process and experience overseeing a continuous delivery pipeline.
• Excellent leadership and people management skills, with the ability to inspire, motivate, and drive technical excellence.
• Outstanding communication and interpersonal abilities, comfortable engaging with stakeholders at all levels.
• A strategic thinker who can balance technical direction with business strategy.
• Passion for education technology and a vested interest in shaping the future of learning.
• Be able to operate at a range of levels – both in terms of big picture strategic thinking, thought leadership and getting into the data and analysis

WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU:

• Be part of a growing Edtech business that’s part of a leading global venture builder.
• Have the opportunity to be a part of and learn from the incredible talent Hive Learning and the wider BC portfolio.
• Be exposed to the right mix of challenges, within a culture that promotes continuous learning and development.
• Discretionary bonus.
• 25 days of paid holidays + your birthday off.
• Life Assurance (4 x annual salary), Pension Scheme, Cycle to Work Scheme.
• Flexible Benefits where you can choose from Private Medical and Dental, Gym Subsidiaries.

PROCESS

We have a rigorous recruitment process, which we use for all our roles to ensure we attract the very best talent.

Blenheim Chalcot and Hive Learning are a proud Equal Opportunity Employers. Diversity is one of our core values, thus making it core to our business. We strive to maximise the diversity of our workforce and welcome applications from everyone. We encourage diversity through perspective, background, identity, and thought whilst also fostering an environment where everyone can express themselves regardless of your race, religion, sex, gender, colour, national origin, disability, or any other applicable legally protected characteristic. We are committed to continuing to nurture an inclusive environment and building a diverse workforce.