Head of Technical Operations

About us

At Trainline, our purpose is to empower greener travel choices, connecting people and places. Trainline enables millions of travellers to find and book the best value tickets across carriers, fares, and journey options through our highly rated mobile app, website, and B2B partner channels. 

Great journeys start with Trainline 🚄 

We’re Europe’s leading independent rail platform, helping millions of travellers find and book the best-value rail and coach journeys across our app, website and partner channels.

Our job is to make the green travel choice the best choice. By building a better train travel experience, we help more people choose rail - creating a positive impact for customers, our business and the planet.

We’re a team of more than 1,000 Trainliners from over 50 nationalities, working across London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Edinburgh and Madrid. Now is a brilliant time to join us and help shape the future of travel.

Introducing the Trainline Technical Operations Team 👋

Technology and Data is where Trainline invests most as we build on our position as Europe’s most downloaded travel app. Innovation is at the heart of how we work, and we keep challenging ourselves to move faster, raise quality and manage cost wisely, while making the most of emerging technology trends. The Technical Operations team brings together budget, resourcing, vendor and performance information to give a clear view of where we invest, what we get back and where we can go further.

As Head of Technical Operations, you will be a trusted partner to senior leaders across Technology, Data, Finance and Product. You will shape the insights and recommendations that guide investment and efficiency decisions across the whole portfolio. You will own the technology budget, capacity planning and external vendor relationships, and lead a team of skilled professionals. Working closely with Directors, VPs and executive leaders, you will turn complex information into clear, compelling stories that help everyone move forward together.

In this role as the Head of Technical Operations, you will...🚄

• Lead and manage the Technology budget, working with teams across the department to align spend with our strategic goals and make sure we use our money wisely across teams, tools and initiatives

• Lead headcount and capacity planning in collaboration with Engineering, Product and Talent, supporting workforce planning and our hiring roadmap so that teams have the right people at the right time

• Manage relationships with external technology vendors and partners, leading contract negotiations, performance reviews and renewals, while continually improving the value we get for our spend

• Build and maintain dashboards and operational measures that give clear visibility of delivery progress, incidents and team efficiency, turning data into insight that helps leaders make faster, better-informed decisions

• Partner across Technology and Data to form clear views and recommendations on how we improve efficiency and get the most from our investment, including where to reallocate spend, reduce waste and speed up delivery

• Track the benefits we gain from our investments and share what we learn, so that future decisions are even stronger

• Build trusted relationships with Directors, VPs and executive leaders across Technology, Data, Finance and Product, crafting clear narratives that bring complex financial and operational data to life and encourage confident decisions and action

• Lead, support and develop your team, creating an inclusive environment where everyone can do their best work

We’d love to hear from you if you have...🔍

• Significant experience in a senior technology operations or technology programme management role, with a record of leading teams and delivering results in a complex environment

• A solid understanding of budget management and financial modelling within a technology setting

• Experience managing vendor relationships and negotiating contracts that deliver good value

• Hands-on experience using dashboards, tools and key performance measures to give technology teams clear visibility of how they are performing

• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with a talent for explaining data through clear, engaging stories

• The ability to build trust and influence Directors, VPs and executive leaders, shaping narratives that lead to decisions

• A commercial, curious mindset, with the confidence to form a point of view and make clear recommendations on investment and efficiency

• Ideally, experience in a high-volume digital or consumer business such as travel, e-commerce or fintech, and familiarity with Agile ways of working in cross-functional teams. We warmly welcome transferable experience from other sectors

More information:

Enjoy fantastic perks like private healthcare & dental insurance, a generous work from abroad policy, 2-for-1 share purchase plans, an EV Scheme to further reduce carbon emissions, extra festive time off, and excellent family-friendly benefits. 

We prioritise career growth with clear career paths, transparent pay bands, personal learning budgets, and regular learning days. Jump on board and supercharge your career from day one! 

We're operating a hybrid model and ask that Trainliners work from the office a minimum of 60% of their time over a 12-week period. We also have a 28-day Work from Abroad policy.

Our values represent the things that matter most to us and what we live and breathe everyday, in everything we do: 

• 💭 Think Big - We're building the future of rail 

• ✔️ Own It - We focus on every customer, partner and journey 

• 🤝  Travel Together - We're one team 

• ♻️ Do Good - We make a positive impact 

We know that having a diverse team makes us better and helps us succeed. And we mean all forms of diversity - gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, nationality and diversity of thought. That's why we're committed to creating inclusive places to work, where everyone belongs and differences are valued and celebrated.

Interested in finding out more about what it's like to work at Trainline? Why not check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram and Glassdoor!