Director - Engineering

At Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) – it all starts with animals!

As a global leader in animal health, we are dedicated to innovation and delivering products and services to prevent and treat disease in farm animals and pets. We’re driven by our vision of ‘Food and Companionship Enriching Life’ and our approach to sustainability – the Elanco Healthy Purpose™ – to advance the health of animals, people, the planet and our enterprise.

At Elanco, we pride ourselves on fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We believe that diversity is the driving force behind innovation, creativity, and overall business success. Here, you’ll be part of a company that values and champions new ways of thinking, work with dynamic individuals, and acquire new skills and experiences that will propel your career to new heights.

Making animals’ lives better makes life better – join our team today!

Location: Hook, UK (Hybrid)

Driven by the quickening pace of innovation, Elanco IT must continue to evolve, proactively partnering to create new value through innovative digital products, services, and insights, supporting internal business partners and external customers.

As the Director of Engineering at Elanco, you will be a key leader within our Engineering team, responsible for driving technical excellence and contributing to our product operating model. Your role will be pivotal in staffing, developing, and mentoring high-performing technical individuals, ensuring consistent practices, and upholding robust technical competency. You will guide empowered teams to deliver innovative, high-quality solutions across the value chain (R&D to Commercial) that support Elanco's mission of advancing animal health.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership

• Lead and shape technical strategy in alignment with the Product Operating Model, focusing on agile, customer-driven development and operational excellence.

• Collaborate with product, design, and business teams to define and execute engineering priorities.

• Anticipate the need for new skillsets and competencies and create plans to address them.

Team Development and Talent Management

• Develop and implement staffing plans to build and maintain high-calibre engineering teams.

• Mentor, coach, and develop engineering leaders and individual contributors, fostering growth and career development.

• Establish and promote consistent technical practices across teams to ensure high performance and productivity.

Technical Excellence

• Drive the adoption of modern engineering methodologies, best practices, and innovative technologies.

• Champion continuous improvement in technical competency, code quality, and system architecture.

• Partnering with Product Managers, and our Engineering Demand advisor, oversee technical delivery, ensuring solutions meet quality, reliability, and scalability standards.

• Partner across Engineering leadership to drive Engineering quality improvement practices from education, coaching through to tooling driving measurable improvements to Engineering efficiency and quality.

Empowered Team Culture

• Foster an environment that empowers teams to make data-driven decisions and innovate through experimentation.

• Ensure clear communication channels, encouraging collaboration and transparency within and across teams.

• Support a culture that values cross-functional collaboration, shared ownership, and a strong focus on customer outcomes.

Operational Oversight and Governance

• Partner with Engineering demand supporting responding to demand coming down from Product Management with skilled Engineering resource.

• Make trade-offs where required to match demand needs but at the same time balancing the needs of the Engineer and their self-development and growth.

• Support Engineering Demand Management with product governance discussions ensuring the right engineering talent is deployed to support product needs.

• Implement Engineering governance frameworks that ensure consistency, risk management, and adherence to compliance standards.

• Monitor and optimize engineering processes to drive efficiency, reduce technical debt, and support sustainable growth.

• Balance the ‘Fusion Team’ concept taking agency concepts to run the Software Engineering ensuring we have strong talent management, deployment practices and ability to respond to demand at speed.

Qualifications and Experience:

• A proven track record of 10+ years in an engineering leadership role, with strong technical understanding and hands-on experience.

• Demonstrated success in staffing, developing, and leading high-performing technical teams.

• Strong experience with agile methodologies, DevSecOps practices, and modern software engineering frameworks.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence across cross-functional teams.

• A deep commitment to technical excellence and an ability to empower teams through continuous learning and improvement.

• Experience embedding and scaling the product-first principles as defined by the Product Operating Model would be highly advantageous.

Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology (IT).

Other Information: Occasional travel may be required.

Elanco is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status