We’re looking for a Head of Research & Development to join the Kobas team.
About Kobas
Kobas provides Software-as-a-Service to the hospitality industry, transforming operational routines from dull, spreadsheet-based grind to quick, point-and-click management, across our core product pillars: In‑Venue, Operations, Customers, Teams and Insights. Our software helps food and beverage businesses process millions of pounds of sales each year. We unite with our clients so they can benefit from our complete hospitality system, follow best practices, share knowledge, provide insight, and achieve maximum ROI. If you enjoy a bite out to eat or a drink with friends, you’ve most likely been served using Kobas technology.
About the role
The Head of Research & Development is responsible for leading engineering, ensuring the delivery of high‑quality, scalable and reliable software while driving improvements in team performance, delivery efficiency and ways of working. You’ll join a proactive and high‑performing senior leadership team and work closely with all departments to shape and deliver our strategy, with impact across the entire business. This is a leadership‑first role focused on building a high‑performing, accountable team and establishing clear ownership, structure and consistency across the department. The role owns the end‑to‑end delivery process, ensuring work flows effectively from prioritisation through to release, and that bottlenecks, dependencies and inefficiencies are identified and addressed. The Head of R&D will play a key role in driving change and continuous improvement, including the adoption of an AI‑enabled Software Development Lifecycle (AI‑SDLC). This includes introducing tools, standards and practices that improve team productivity, quality and consistency, while ensuring appropriate guardrails are in place around security, data handling and quality. While not a hands‑on engineering role, the position requires strong technical understanding and credibility, enabling the individual to guide technical decisions, challenge approaches where needed, and ensure that architecture, standards and practices align with business and product goals. The role also carries commercial and operational responsibility, including managing departmental performance, balancing delivery priorities with cost and resource constraints, and ensuring engineering effort is aligned to business value.
Responsibilities
- Lead, develop and manage a high‑performing engineering team, ensuring accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement
- Own and improve the end‑to‑end delivery process, ensuring efficient workflow from prioritisation through to release
- Manage workload distribution, priorities and delivery timelines in alignment with product and business needs
- Oversee technical direction, ensuring architecture, standards and practices support scalability, reliability and maintainability
- Identify and resolve bottlenecks (e.g. code review, testing, dependencies) through structural and process improvements
- Drive adoption of AI tools and AI‑enabled ways of working to improve delivery speed, quality and efficiency
- Define and implement QA strategy, including the introduction of automated testing and evaluation of QA resource needs
- Establish and track key performance metrics (e.g. cycle time, throughput, quality) and drive measurable improvements
- Collaborate closely with Product and the wider business to align engineering output with customer and business priorities
- Manage departmental budget and contribute to overall efficiency and commercial performance
What you’ll bring to the table
- Proven experience leading engineering teams and driving improvements in delivery, performance and team effectiveness
- Strong understanding of software development principles, architecture and engineering practices
- Experience working with modern web technologies and cloud‑based systems (e.g. PHP, APIs, AWS, Linux environments)
- Experience working with legacy systems and balancing technical improvement with ongoing delivery
- Strong understanding of Agile development practices and experience using project management tools (e.g. YouTrack, Jira)
- Experience implementing or improving development processes, including testing, code quality and delivery workflows
- Exposure to or experience with AI tools or automation in development workflows is desirable
- Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to operate at both technical and business levels
- Commercial awareness and ability to balance delivery, quality and cost considerations
What Kobas serves up
- Competitive salary (dependent on experience)
- Equipment for your working from home setup
- Remote‑first ethos, with the flexibility to work at a location where it works for you
- Flexible working hours to balance out other life priorities
- 25 days annual leave, plus bank holidays and annual increments with service
- Annual social calendar and other treats
- A strong benefits package including Employee assistance program provided by healthassured.org
- Backed by Vesta Software Group (part of Constellation Software Inc.)
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