Engineering Operations Lead

ENGINEERING OPERATIONS LEAD Location: Pune/Bengaluru, India (hybrid) | Team: Engineering | Reporting to: CTO | Level: Senior Individual Contributor OVERVIEW APEXX is an independent, enterprise payment orchestration platform. Merchants connect to APEXX once and reach the world's payment ecosystem: acquirers, alternative payment methods (APMs), Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) providers and network tokenisation. Our routing engine (AIRE), cascading, Smart Split and Revenue Protect decide in milliseconds where each transaction should go to maximise acceptance and minimise cost. We don't own an acquirer, so our only incentive is the merchant's outcome. We're backed by MMC, Forward Partners, Alliance VC & Finch Capital and growing with enterprise travel and eCommerce merchants including Jet2, TUI, Ryanair, CarTrawler and Hotelbeds. We're looking for an Engineering Operations Lead to strengthen how our Product & Technology team operates, collaborates and delivers. Working closely with our CTO and Engineering Leadership Team, you'll take ownership of our Atlassian ecosystem, improve delivery governance, release readiness and engineering performance visibility, and use AI, automation and modern development tools to build smarter, more scalable ways of working. Your initial focus will be transforming Jira and Confluence, establishing effective workflows, reporting and platform governance, before expanding into broader technology operations, engineering productivity and strategic support for the CTO. This is a hands-on role combining technical expertise, delivery management and operational improvement, ideal for someone who enjoys solving complex problems, building practical solutions and helping engineering teams perform at their best. WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING ATLASSIAN PLATFORM & ENGINEERING OPERATIONS

• Own and transform our Atlassian ecosystem: take responsibility for Jira, Confluence and Jira Service Management, improving configurations, workflows, permissions, integrations and overall platform governance.
• Standardise engineering workflows: establish consistent, scalable processes across Engineering, Product, Platform and QA, reducing unnecessary complexity while supporting different teams' delivery needs.
• Build automation and integrations: connect Jira with GitLab, Slack, CI/CD tooling and other systems to improve traceability, data quality and operational efficiency.
• Maintain secure, reliable platforms: oversee access controls, configuration standards, documentation and audit trails in support of our PCI DSS, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 environment.
• Drive platform adoption and improvement: troubleshoot issues, simplify legacy configurations and enable teams through documentation, training and self-service capabilities. TECHNOLOGY DELIVERY, GOVERNANCE & CTO OFFICE
• Strengthen delivery governance: establish consistent approaches to planning, tracking, reporting and managing delivery commitments across Product and Technology teams.
• Improve engineering performance visibility: develop dashboards and reporting covering DORA metrics, cycle time, throughput, sprint predictability, delivery bottlenecks and defect trends.
• Support release readiness: coordinate visibility into outstanding defects, testing progress, dependencies, operational risks and release milestones, helping teams identify and address issues before deployment.
• Drive cross-functional delivery: track key initiatives, milestones, dependencies and risks across Engineering, Product, Platform and QA, proactively escalating blockers and supporting resolution.
• Improve incident and problem management: strengthen incident tracking, escalation, root-cause analysis and follow-through on corrective and preventative actions.
• Partner with the CTO: translate technology priorities into structured initiatives, coordinate team reviews, maintain visibility into key decisions and commitments, and prepare concise executive & board reporting with storytelling at heart.
• Champion delivery effectiveness: identify recurring operational challenges, challenge inefficient processes and work with engineering leaders to improve predictability, accountability and execution. AI, AUTOMATION & CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
• Build intelligent automation: develop workflows, integrations and lightweight internal tools using APIs, scripting, automation platforms and AI-assisted development.
• Develop practical AI solutions: explore and implement AI agents, intelligent reporting, ticket triage, knowledge retrieval and other solutions that improve engineering productivity and operational effectiveness.
• Improve technology knowledge management: strengthen documentation, knowledge sharing and AI-assisted search across Confluence and other internal platforms.
• Connect and optimise our technology stack: reduce manual administration, eliminate duplicated processes and improve the flow of information between engineering and operational systems.
• Champion responsible innovation: evaluate emerging AI and automation capabilities, ensuring solutions are secure, maintainable, appropriately governed and deliver measurable value. ABOUT YOU
• Strong experience in technology operations, technical delivery management, engineering operations or a similar role within a software engineering environment.
• Demonstrable hands-on expertise administering and improving Jira, including workflows, schemes, permissions, automation, dashboards and integrations.
• Good understanding of Agile/Scrum/Kanban, SDLC, engineering delivery processes, release management and delivery governance.
• Experience coordinating technical initiatives, managing dependencies, identifying delivery risks and improving accountability across engineering teams.
• Familiarity with engineering performance metrics, including DORA, cycle time, throughput, defect trends and delivery predictability.
• Practical experience with AI-assisted development, workflow automation, APIs or scripting to build solutions and improve operational efficiency.
• Comfortable working with Confluence, Jira Service Management, GitHub, Slack and modern engineering tooling.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with experience translating operational data into actionable reporting and recommendations.
• Confident partnering with CTOs, Engineering leaders and senior stakeholders, constructively challenging existing processes and driving cross-functional improvements.
• A proactive, hands-on approach, comfortable balancing platform administration, operational delivery and longer-term improvement initiatives.
• Excellent communication and organisational skills, with experience working across distributed, cross-functional teams. NICE TO HAVE
• Experience working within a CTO Office, Engineering Operations or Technical Programme Management function.
• Atlassian certifications or experience with Jira Cloud, REST APIs, ScriptRunner, Forge or Rovo.
• Experience with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, SQL, n8n or similar automation tools.
• Experience developing AI-powered internal tools, LLM integrations or agentic workflows.
• Experience with engineering analytics, release governance, incident management or IT service management.
• Experience in a FinTech, SaaS or scale-up environment, ideally with exposure to PCI DSS, SOC 2 or ISO 27001. HOW WE HIRE Three conversations:
• a talent screen,
• a conversation with the hiring manager, and
• a practical technology operations, delivery and automation discussion. The practical session will explore how you approach real-world challenges — improving Jira workflows, establishing delivery governance, interpreting engineering performance metrics and using AI or automation to solve operational problems. You're welcome to use AI tools where appropriate. We're interested in how you think, validate and make decisions. Once a decision is made, every candidate receives written feed-forward from the panel. Tell us about any adjustments you need and we'll make them. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
• Competitive compensation: that recognises your skills, experience and impact.
• Generous time off: annual leave, public holidays and wellbeing-focused time away from work.
• Work From Anywhere: up to 90 days a year from eligible locations, subject to our policy.
• Comprehensive health insurance: for you and your loved ones.
• Personal accident insurance: for when it's needed most.
• Enhanced family leave: enhanced parental and family-friendly leave policies.
• Learning & growth: opportunities to learn, grow and build a meaningful career at APEXX. WHO WE ARE & WHERE WE ARE APEXX is a global payment orchestration platform with teams in the UK and India. For more than a decade we've helped enterprise businesses simplify payments through a single, scalable integration, with access to 200+ acquirers, 150+ alternative payment methods and 10+ BNPL providers. We're trusted by leading global brands including Ryanair, TUI, Hotelbeds, CarTrawler, Avon and Jet2. APEXX is an equal opportunities employer committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We do not accept speculative CVs or candidate profiles from recruitment agencies.