Cryptographer - #2186348

Position Overview

Title – Lead Cryptography Engineer

Location: Leeds, UK (Hybrid- 2 days' work from office)

Contract- 6+ Months

Job Summary

You’ll lead the engineering capability for Key Management services within the Chief Security Office’s Cryptography Lab, taking accountability for their end‑to‑end operational health, reliability and ongoing improvement. You’ll provide leadership and direction to a team of engineers, ensuring services are designed, built and operated in line with security policy, regulatory expectations and audit requirements.

Working closely with Product Owners, Risk, Compliance and Audit stakeholders, you’ll drive improvements in engineering effectiveness, service resilience and delivery predictability, while maintaining strong control discipline across cryptographic operations and ceremonies such as HSM lifecycle management. You’ll play a key role in strengthening the technical and operational maturity of the platform, coaching teams to enhance design quality, operability and maintainability, and fostering a culture of continuous learning, collaboration and excellence in a high‑trust, high‑risk environment.

What we’re looking for?

• Senior engineering leadership experience with accountability for delivery and operational outcomes
• Strong understanding of Key Management concepts, cryptographic controls and KM operating models
• Lead the evolution of enterprise key management services, embedding crypto‑agility principles and modern DevOps engineering practices to ensure scalable, secure, and adaptable cryptographic controls.
• Experience leading and developing engineering teams, including coaching and performance management
• Solid grounding in modern engineering practices and applying them pragmatically in high‑risk, regulated environments
• Ability to work closely with Product Owners and stakeholders, contributing to prioritisation and trade‑off decisions
• Experience ensuring services meet security, regulatory and audit requirements with embedded controls
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence across engineering, risk and business teams

And it would be great if you had any of the following...

• Experience delivering scalable, resilient and highly available platforms across the full lifecycle
• Background in Financial Services, Financial Markets or similarly regulated environments
• Knowledge of cryptographic ceremonies, HSM lifecycle management or related operational practices
• Experience driving engineering maturity, reliability and operational excellence at scale