Head of Engineering - Contract

The Head of Engineering is responsible for all technical delivery, architecture, and engineering practices across GovTech Barbados products and services. You will lead the technology function, ensuring that all technical solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, and built using modern engineering standards. You are the senior technical authority, providing leadership and direction to the entire engineering community.

This is a senior strategic leadership role that requires a deep understanding of modern technology practices, software development, infrastructure, and security. You will work with other leaders to shape and deliver the organization's strategy, ensuring that technology is a key enabler for delivering excellent public services.

About the team

The GovTech Barbados team is responsible for developing multi-disciplinary, user-centered digital teams within the Government of Barbados. Our goals are twofold: first, we want to deliver tangible impact to citizens through excellent public service design and delivery. Second, we want to build a sustainable and enduring digital mindset, skillset, and culture within the government. It’s an exciting time to join us as we accelerate our delivery phase. We are taking an agile, lean approach to this work, learning as we go from our end-users, public servants, and global experts in digital transformation.

About the role

As the Head of Engineering, you are a leader of the technology profession. You will lead, develop, and implement the organization's technology strategy, balancing operational needs with strategic direction to ensure pragmatic and cost-effective decisions are taken. You will build, mentor, and support a high-performing and diverse team of technology leaders and practitioners, fostering a positive, inclusive, and collaborative working environment. You will be accountable for all technical decisions, while delegating responsibility wherever appropriate to empower your teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic leadership and vision:
• Develop and implement a comprehensive technology transformation roadmap, providing a clear vision and expert advice to senior stakeholders on complex technical issues.
• Work closely with the Head of Product, Head of Service Design, and Head of Delivery to ensure a coherent approach to building and delivering digital services.
• Translate business problems into technical designs and manage stakeholder expectations effectively.
• Team leadership and engineering culture:
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing, diverse engineering team by shaping career paths, facilitating mobility, and recruiting top talent.
• Champion and embed a high-performing engineering culture grounded in modern practices like continuous learning, technical mentorship, and inclusion through code reviews and pair programming.
• Technical excellence and architecture:
• Set the strategy for solution development and control system design practice across GovTech Barbados.
• Drive API-first, service-oriented architectures and event-driven design to enable interoperability and reuse across government platforms.
• Ensure all solutions are engineered to mitigate security threats, encourage code reusability, and adhere to government digital standards.
• Provide expert oversight and guidance on the core technologies used across our services, including languages (e.g. Python, Node.js, React), data platforms (e.g. PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis), infrastructure (e.g. AWS), and security standards (e.g. OAuth2, SAML, OpenID Connect).
• Modern engineering and delivery operations:
• Drive the delivery of technologies, tools, and systems that meet user needs, optimizing development processes for the effective support and maintenance of all services.
• Promote cloud-native engineering on AWS with Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Foster a strong DevSecOps culture by integrating automated testing, security scanning, and continuous delivery through CI/CD pipelines.
• Drive secure-by-design development aligned with OWASP and Zero-Trust principles.
• Ensure robust observability by adopting modern monitoring, logging, and alerting practices, and foster a blameless post-incident culture.
• Innovation and continuous improvement:
• Identify, test, and champion the adoption of emerging technologies that will help deliver the organization's strategy and improve services.

Essential attributes

• Visionary and strategic leader:
• You have 10 to 15 years of demonstrable experience with at least 5 years at a senior level transforming a legacy organization to one that uses internet-era technologies and ways of working.
• You can set a strong direction, convey a persuasive future technology vision, and inspire both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• You excel at balancing strategic delivery with high operational demand in a complex, resource-constrained environment.
• Expert team builder:
• You are skilled at building, motivating, and developing a large, diverse team of technical practitioners with a strong focus on inclusion and professional growth.
• You excel at working collaboratively across boundaries to deliver the right technology solutions to meet user outcomes.
• Deep technical and architectural expertise:
• You have a deep, practical understanding of modern engineering practices, including cloud-native architecture, DevSecOps culture, API-first design, and secure-by-design principles.
• You have a sophisticated, hands-on understanding of our core technical stack, such as Python, Node.js, React, PostgreSQL, AWS, and modern security standards like OAuth2.
• You can design complex systems characterized by high levels of risk, impact, and complexity, and can develop effective implementation strategies to meet user needs.

Contract details

• Contract duration: One (1) year, with potential to extend
• Pay commensurate with qualifications and experience will be offered
• We prefer hybrid (remote and in-person) work, but we will consider entirely remote candidates

Reporting to

Mark Boyce, CEO, GovTech Barbados, or his designate

Terms of Reference

Terms of Reference for this contract are available here: Head of Engineering