Head of Engineering - DNS Services

Contract Type: Permanent

Location: Hybrid, with a minimum of 20% in the Oxford and London offices per month

We’re Nominet – a world-leading domain name registryoperatingat the heart of the UK internet. Whilewe'rebest known for running .UK domains, our DNSexpertisealso underpins critical internet infrastructure that government services, including the NHS, rely on.
As a public benefit company, our work has a positive impact on society. Alongside our work as the national domain name registry, we support programmes that use technology to improve people’s lives by making the internet safe and resilient.

As the Head of Engineering for DNS services at Nominet, you will lead a core technology engineering team to deliver industry-leading systems for the internet.

This is a critical role with responsibility for engineering one of Nominet’smain business lines.

You will manage a highly skilled team who are either deep experts in the Domain Name System (DNS) or software engineers who will develop custom applicationsandautomationwhichunderpinsour DNS Services.

This role requires a good understanding of distributed systems and modern software engineering and would suit someone from a Site Reliability Engineering or Dev Sec Ops  background with extensive experience in managing mission-critical systems based on open source software.

To be successful in this role, you will need to build on our existing DNS product and balance service delivery with the broader strategic goals of the organisation. You will take a data-driven approach to technology and have a relentless focus on simplicity and working software. This way of working will inform your decision-making and provide a feedback loop to drive incremental improvements.

Overall, youwill be a natural problem solver with the mindset for excellence across the entire software development lifecycle – architecture, engineering, and into operations.

• Lead the DNS Engineering function: Manage and mentor engineers, fostering a collaborative and innovative team culture.

• Technical leadership: Partner with senior DNS experts to guide the design, delivery, and operation of Nominet’s DNS products and services, ensuring they are robust, scalable, and aligned with industry best practices.

• Design authority alignment: Work closely with DNS architects and principal engineers to ensure expert thinking is embedded in our products and services.

• Strategic direction: Collaborate with the CTO, Technology Leadership Team, Architecture, and Product to shape and deliver the DNS strategy.

• Software and service design: Ensure DNS software and services meet current and future business needs, with a focus on innovation and continuous improvement.

• Project delivery: Deliver DNS initiatives on time, within budget, and to high quality standards, managing risk and ensuring rigorous testing.

• Operational excellence: Ensure DNS services meet or exceed SLAs for uptime and performance through proactive monitoring, maintenance, and optimisation.

• Stakeholder collaboration: Work closely with Network Engineering, Security, Platforms, and SRE to ensure DNS services are fully integrated and aligned with organisational goals.

• People development: Recruit, develop, and retain top DNS talent, fostering continuous learning and keeping skills aligned with advances in DNS technology.

• 7+ years of engineering experience with 3+ years in senior leadership roles, ideally within telco, internet, or service provider environments, or alternatively in near real-time, distributed, or streaming systems.

• Strong understanding of Linux-based systems and cloud platforms (AWS preferred).

• Hands‑on experience designing and managing large‑scale distributed systems, web applications, and microservices.

• Knowledge of distributed architectures, internet protocols, and networking fundamentals (IP addressing, routing, load balancing).

• Knowledge of BGP and IP Anycast a plus.

• Strong software engineering background (Java, Python, or similar).

• Experience developing and commercialising solutions/products.

• Understanding of security practices, including encryption, DDOS mitigation, and working in highly secure…