Head of Engineering

Help build the engineering organization behind a groundbreaking technology for the energy transition. You connect people, technology, and business to let RIFT grow without losing quality, knowledge, and speed! You know how to build the tech department so that the team is ready for the future!

About RIFT

RIFT is working on one of the greatest challenges of the energy transition: making industrial heat sustainable.

With our Iron Fuel Technology, we offer a fossil-free alternative for industries that depend on high-temperature heat. Where electrification or hydrogen are not always the right solution, our technology makes it possible to sustainably transform industrial processes.

What makes RIFT unique is that we are not just developing an innovative product, but a complete technology platform. Our engineers build the technology, standards, and knowledge required to apply these solutions on a large international scale.

RIFT stands at an important moment in its development. We are growing from a technology-oriented startup to an organization that wants to deploy its technology on a large scale and bring it to market. Alpha One is our first large-scale project. An important next milestone is the Final Investment Decision (FID) that clears the way for the construction of our first plant.

The challenge

RIFT is at the beginning of the next phase: professionalizing the Technology engineering organization. To make this next phase possible, we are looking for this new role, a Head of Engineering.

As Head of Engineering, you are responsible for further developing our New Tech Engineering organization and its performance. You bring quality, structure, and growth to the engineering team, while simultaneously managing to maintain the speed, innovative power, and entrepreneurial culture of RIFT.

You ensure that engineering capabilities, technical qualities, and the strategic objectives of RIFT are constantly aligned. You work closely with the CTO, Engineers, and Research & Development to raise processes, standards, and team development to a higher level. In this way, you build an engineering organization that is ready for further growth and capable of supporting RIFT's ambitions on an international scale.

What will you do?

• You are the team leader of the engineering organization within the Technology department and develop teams, technical leaders, and high potentials.

• You are responsible for people management, talent development, and the influx of new employees.

• You create clear ownership, clear responsibilities, and effective decision-making, and help the organization to quickly make decisions when priorities conflict.

• You ensure transparency in capabilities, planning, risks, and dependencies, so that adjustments can be made in a timely manner.

• You support the transition to a structure that is being prepared for a next funding round without losing the entrepreneurial culture of RIFT.

  Key KPI's: team development, employee engagement, retention, and organizational maturity.

You hold ultimate responsibility for the performance, quality, and predictability of the engineering organization within the Technology department. Your most important mission is building a scalable engineering organization in which knowledge, standards, procedures, and lessons learned are structurally secured and broadly supported. With this, you ensure that RIFT not only delivers today, but can also realize consistently high-quality engineering in the future.

• You develop and implement standards, working methods, and quality criteria that ensure consistent and reproducible engineering results.

• You secure knowledge and expertise within the organization, so that RIFT becomes less dependent on individual experts.

• You ensure that technical risks are visible and manageable in a timely manner and monitor that our technology remains safe, reliable, and scalable.

• You stimulate a culture of craftsmanship, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement.

Key KPI's: engineering quality, project goals, planning predictability, degree of standardization, and operational performance.

You ensure a strong connection between Engineering and the rest of the organization.

• You work closely with the CTO, Sales, R&D, and Business Strategy and Finance to translate technical choices into maximum business impact.

• You bring different stakeholders together to make well-considered choices and create clarity when ambitions, technical feasibility, and available capacity do not fully align.

• You represent the engineering team in strategic decision-making and ensure that the voice of this team is included in a timely and effective manner.

Key KPI's: stakeholder management, integral collaboration between teams, and the contribution of Engineering to the strategic objective of RIFT.

What does success look like?

We are working towards an engineering organization in which knowledge, standards, and procedures are structurally established and broadly supported. Engineering teams deliver predictable results, make conscious technical choices, and understand how their work contributes to the growth of RIFT. Priorities are clear, responsibilities are assigned, and decision-making proceeds effectively. Awareness regarding intellectual property (IP) is strengthened: alongside developing technology, protecting technological knowledge is also a self-evident part.

New colleagues can quickly make an impact, teams work together successfully across disciplines, and the organization is ready for further growth.

But above all, the entrepreneurial and innovative culture has been preserved, which is translated into our five core values: Ownership, Simplicity, Action, Curiosity, and Appealing.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for an experienced and people-oriented Head of Engineering manager who understands how to help a technical organization grow from startup to scale-up, where the Final Investment Decision is a next milestone.

You are someone who brings calm, clarity, and focus to an environment where many opportunities, ideas, and ambitions converge. You know how to make teams successful without wanting to solve everything yourself. Instead, you create the conditions and focus through which the organization can make good decisions independently.

You have a connecting mindset; you know how to switch easily between engineers, management, and business stakeholders. You dare to make difficult choices, set priorities, and where necessary, also say 'no'. Not out of limitation, but out of focus and transparency.

• A completed HBO or WO degree in a technical direction, and you have an affinity with process technology, energy, chemistry, or oil & gas.

• Experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams.

• Demonstrable experience in professionalizing and scaling up engineering organizations.

• Experience within a fast-growing technical environment, preferably in a scale-up environment.

• Strong people management skills and experience with coaching and leadership development.

• Experience with setting up and improving engineering processes and governance.

• Experience with capacity planning, resource management, and prioritization.

• Ability to translate strategy into concrete, actionable choices.

• Sufficient technical depth to be a credible interlocutor for engineers and the CTO.

Why this role is unique

Many Head of Engineering positions revolve around managing an existing organization. This role revolves around building the organization that enables the future growth of RIFT. You step in at a moment when the technical foundation is strong and the organization is ready for the next growth phase. You get the chance to provide direction on how the engineering team develops its vision, how teams work together, and how the technology is successfully scaled up. You are not just building an organization, but also the international rollout of a technology that makes a substantial contribution to the energy transition.

RIFT’s Head of Engineering

• You lead an engineering organization of approximately 15 colleagues and play a central role in expanding it.

• You report directly to the CTO and work closely with the leadership team on the further growth and professionalization of RIFT.

• Flexibility to work hybrid.

• The possibility to grow with RIFT by participating in our SAR scheme.

So help build a scalable engineering organization with a revolutionary technology in which innovation, groundbreaking technology, ownership, and collaboration go hand in hand!