Portfolio Lead - Engineering Practices (Contract)

A global technology organisation is looking for an experienced Portfolio Lead to support its central Engineering Practices function. This role sits within a modern CTO organisation and focuses on improving engineering maturity, strengthening Communities of Practice, and bringing structure and clarity across a busy multi-workstream portfolio.

You'll work closely with engineering teams, translate technical work into clear narratives, and ensure delivery momentum across multiple initiatives.

What you'll be responsible for

• Portfolio oversight - Maintain an accurate view of workstreams, priorities, dependencies and progress.
• Team operations - Lead standups, retros, backlog reviews and planning sessions; ensure actions are followed through.
• Capability uplift - Partner with HR/Workforce teams on skills development and talent initiatives.
• Senior-level communication - Produce concise, well-structured updates, briefing notes and decks for senior stakeholders.
• Impact storytelling - Gather evidence, metrics and case studies to demonstrate value and outcomes.
• Community engagement - Attend CoP sessions, shadow engineers and support internal engineering events.
• Operational improvement - Identify opportunities to streamline how the team works and propose practical changes.

What you'll bring

• Strong experience coordinating complex, multi-workstream portfolios in engineering or technology environments.
• Ability to turn technical work into clear, compelling narratives for both engineers and senior leadership.
• Confident written communication across executive summaries, decks and progress updates.
• Skilled stakeholder management across a matrixed organisation.
• Comfortable working with data, metrics and evidence to shape stories and demonstrate impact.
• Genuine interest in modern engineering practices and how teams operate.

Desirable experience

• Exposure to Communities of Practice, DevRel or engineering enablement.
• Familiarity with tools such as Jira, Confluence, GitHub, Teams.
• Experience in financial services or other complex, regulated environments.
• Experience producing internal or external engineering-focused content.