Applications Director- Salesforce

Applications Director | Salesforce, Workday & Microsoft 365/Azure

Hybrid | London (2 days a week in office)

We're partnering with a global organisation undergoing a major digital transformation programme and are seeking a Director of Applications to lead the strategy, engineering excellence, and operational management of a complex enterprise applications landscape.

This is a newly created leadership role reporting directly to the CTO, offering the opportunity to shape the future of business-critical platforms, modern engineering practices, and AI-enabled operations across a global organisation

The Opportunity

You’ll be responsible for the availability, performance, governance, and evolution of a portfolio of strategic enterprise platforms, while leading a team of platform specialists, technical leads, and engineers.

This role combines strategic leadership with hands‑on ownership of platform roadmaps, engineering standards, cloud operations, and AI platform governance.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the strategy, roadmap, and ongoing evolution of enterprise applications platforms
• Build and develop a Platform Centre of Excellence, driving governance, standards, and best practice
• Own engineering excellence across CI/CD, release management, source control, automated testing, and environment management
• Lead platform teams responsible for Salesforce, Workday, Microsoft 365, Azure, and wider SaaS technologies
• Establish engineering standards, architectural patterns, and Infrastructure as Code practices
• Oversee AI platform operations, governance, adoption, and optimisation
• Partner closely with Architecture, Security, Data, and Transformation teams to deliver business outcomes

What We’re Looking For

• Significant experience leading enterprise application functions within a global organisation
• Deep expertise across at least two of the following: Salesforce, Workday, Microsoft 365 / Azure, AWS
• Proven track record building and leading Centres of Excellence
• Strong background in SaaS platforms, cloud technologies, and enterprise-scale application operations
• Experience implementing modern engineering practices including CI/CD, DevOps, release management, and automated testing
• Knowledge of AI platforms, generative AI, or agent-based technologies would be highly advantageous
• Experience managing technical leaders, architects, and platform specialists
• Ability to engage and influence executive stakeholders and operate at board level