Digital Engineering Director

Merlin Technology | London / Hybrid | B1

Bring Joy. Create Connections. Make Memories.

At Merlin Entertainments, we create world-class experiences that bring people together – from LEGOLAND® and SEA LIFE to Madame Tussauds and beyond. As part of our ambitious global digital transformation, we’re looking for a Digital Engineering Director to lead the technology that powers our guest experience across the world.

This is a senior, high-impact leadership role at the heart of our Digital Transformation – shaping the platforms that millions of guests interact with every year.

The role

Reporting to the VP, Global Engineering, you’ll own the end-to-end digital engineering portfolio that underpins Merlin’s global guest journey. From mobile apps and interactive kiosks to ticketing, POS, payments, integration, and cloud platforms – this role sets the technical direction and drives delivery at scale.

You’ll lead multiple high-performing engineering teams and technical leaders, working closely with Product, UX/UI, Operations and Commercial teams to deliver seamless, secure and scalable digital experiences across web, app and on-site touchpoints.

This is a role for a strategic technical leader who can operate confidently at board-level and dive deep when needed.

What you’ll be responsible for

Strategic & Technical Leadership

• Define and execute Merlin’s digital engineering strategy, aligned to our business and technology vision

• Own the multi-year roadmap for all digital platforms, ensuring scalability, security and innovation

• Partner with senior stakeholders to align engineering delivery with commercial and guest outcomes

Architecture & Platform Excellence

• Provide technical leadership across mobile, web, kiosk, POS, ticketing, integration and cloud platforms

• Champion modern engineering practices including microservices, API-first and event-driven architectures

• Lead platform engineering, DevOps, SRE and APIM strategies to ensure reliability and performance

Engineering Delivery

• Own the full software development lifecycle, from ideation through to live operations

• Champion agile and DevOps ways of working across global engineering teams

• Manage budgets, vendors and resource planning across the digital portfolio

People & Culture

• Lead, mentor and develop multiple engineering teams, tech leads and managers

• Build a culture of engineering excellence, innovation, learning and accountability

• Drive talent development, succession planning and career progression

Operational Excellence

• Ensure high availability, resilience and performance across all digital platforms

• Oversee incident management, continuous improvement and operational KPIs

• Ensure compliance with security, data protection and industry standards (e.g. GDPR, PCI-DSS)

What we’re looking for

• 10+ years’ experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in senior technical leadership roles

• Proven experience leading large-scale digital platforms across mobile, e-commerce, ticketing, POS or payments

• Strong background in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP), microservices and API management

• Deep expertise in agile delivery, DevOps, CI/CD and SRE practices

• Experience leading global, multi-disciplinary engineering teams

• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical audiences

• Commercially minded, with a clear understanding of how technology drives customer experience and revenue

Experience in retail, hospitality or multi-site international environments is a strong advantage.

Our leadership behaviours

At Merlin, how you lead matters as much as what you deliver. We’re looking for leaders who are:

• Soulfully Curious – open, inquisitive and always learning

• Results Focused – accountable, decisive and outcome-driven

• Extraordinary Teammates – collaborative, inclusive and generous with knowledge

• Developers of People – passionate about growing talent and building future leaders

Why Merlin?

You’ll be part of a global organisation with iconic brands, ambitious growth plans and a genuine commitment to creating memorable experiences – not just for our guests, but for our people too.

If you’re excited by large-scale digital platforms, global complexity and the chance to shape the future of guest experience, we’d love to hear from you.

Come and help us build the digital experiences behind the magic. 

We’re growing fast and alongside a fun and friendly environment, we offer a fabulous package and amazing prospects – ideal if you’re already fantastic and want to become even better (our magic can help here). Benefits include Pension, Life Assurance, discretionary company bonus, 33 days’ holiday including bank holidays, a Merlin Magic Pass which gives you and your friends and family free admission to all of our attractions worldwide, an Enjoy the Ride pass which entitles you and 5 loved ones unlimited entry into your regional attractions, 25% discount in our retail shops and restaurants and 40% discount on LEGO, plus lots more!