Director, Product Software Engineering

Tax and accounting professionals across Scandinavia rely on our software every day to run their practices, serve their clients and stay compliant with constantly changing legislation. We are modernising that portfolio, evolving trusted solutions while building new cloud platforms, developing how our teams work together, and embracing AI across the product development lifecycle to empower our engineers and amplify their expertise.

We are looking for a Director, Product Software Engineering to lead our Scandinavian engineering organisation through this journey. You will lead a team of experienced managers, architects and engineers, building on a strong foundation to take delivery, engineering practices and the organisation to the next level, as part of a global Wolters Kluwer engineering community.

Why this role

- Real impact: Shape what it means to bring software products to market in Scandinavia at the moment GenAI is changing how software is built.
- A meaningful product: Software that professionals depend on for compliance, accuracy and their own clients.
- Great people: A capable, committed and genuinely friendly team with deep domain expertise.
- Local leadership, global reach: Lead a Scandinavian organisation while representing it in global and regional forums within Wolters Kluwer.
- Stability with ambition: The long-term perspective of a global market leader, with a team actively transforming.

Your mandate

You are accountable for the performance, results and health of product software engineering for Scandinavia. Reporting to the VP, Region North, you lead the engineering management team and work closely with product management, architecture, security and global engineering.

What you will do

Deliver predictably

Own delivery of the strategic roadmap. Keep a consolidated view of demand versus capacity, make trade-offs explicit before work starts, and validate that commitments are achievable.

Set technology direction and investment

Translate business strategy into technology priorities. Balance investment across new product development, modernisation, technical debt, compliance and operational resilience with a multi-year view, and challenge initiatives where the value does not justify the investment.

Raise engineering effectiveness

Use meaningful delivery and quality insights to help teams continuously improve how they work. Sponsor developer-experience improvements and modern, automated build, test, release and deployment practices.

Lead the AI engineering transformation

Champion AI-assisted and spec-driven development across the organisation, in line with security, privacy and governance requirements. Encourage experimentation, and keep looking for ways to simplify and accelerate how we work together.

Safeguard quality, security and compliance

Maintain quality, security and release-readiness standards. Act as primary owner for ISO 27001 within your area and keep the organisation prepared for upcoming regulation, particularly from the EU.

Modernise release planning

Together with our Release Manager, establish modern release planning with up-front coordination of dependencies across products and global teams, ensuring smooth updates for customers.

Connect Scandinavia and global

Represent Scandinavian engineering in global and regional forums, work within shared corporate standards and frameworks, and escalate constructively when global and local priorities conflict.

Lead and grow people

Lead the Scandinavia and Finsit management team with clear expectations, accountability, engagement and well-being. Build a strong and diverse talent pipeline, invest in people’s development and help engineering leaders grow in their roles.

Govern decisions and escalations

Clarify which decisions sit with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Security or regional/global leadership. Act as final escalation point for major incidents and report status, risks and dependencies to regional and global leadership.

Be a visible engineering leader

Strengthen your network within Wolters Kluwer and the industry, and represent us externally through talks, articles, podcasts and conferences in Sweden.

What success looks like during the first year

- The organisation remains engaged and resilient through change, with engineering leaders growing in their roles and a strong leadership pipeline for the future.
- Spec-driven development and using loops has become the standard across the team, testing is fully automated, defined and performed by agents, and teams have embraced the new way of working.
- Visibility into roadmap delivery, including predictability, is very high.
- Product go-to-market lead time has substantially reduced.
- Technical debt is being strategically approached using AI to make large-scale improvements quickly.
- DORA metrics are showing close to zero defect escape rate, and product NPS has improved.
- Scandinavia is recognised within Wolters Kluwer as a leading example of modern, AI-enabled engineering practices.

Who you are

Must-haves

- An engineering background: you have built software yourself and understand modern architecture and cloud platforms deeply enough to challenge, guide and earn credibility with engineers, even if you no longer code day to day.
- Senior leadership of a sizeable (~50) software engineering organisation, including leading managers.
- Responsibility for a portfolio of software products delivered to external customers who depend on regular, reliable releases.
- Strong grasp of architecture principles and software quality attributes, and the trade-offs between them.
- Practical experience with AI in software development: you use it daily and follow how AI-assisted and spec-driven development is evolving.
- Experience with security and compliance frameworks such as ISO 27001, including audits.
- Proven ability to navigate a matrix organisation and influence stakeholders you do not control.
- Fluent Swedish and English.

Nice to have

- Experience from a B2B product software or SaaS company.
- Experience from compliance-driven domains such as tax, accounting, finance or e-invoicing.
- Experience modernising a product portfolio while continuing to serve existing customers.
- Budget responsibility and vendor/contractor management.
- Experience working with engineering teams across countries.
- A visible profile in the tech community.

How you lead

- You combine clarity and pace with a collaborative, inclusive style that works in Scandinavian culture. You bring people along rather than tell them.
- You are pragmatic: you simplify, remove friction and bring fresh perspectives with energy and optimism.
- You act as an ambassador for change, building enthusiasm for new ways of working.
- You take ownership of results and of your people’s growth, and you address challenges openly and constructively.

Travel percentage

Occasional, <10%.
We have a hybrid work policy with 8 office days per month.

Questions?

Reach out to Recruiter Silvie Roelans at [email protected].

Please note that we do not accept applications over email.

Our Interview Practices

To maintain a fair and genuine hiring process, we kindly ask that all candidates participate in interviews without the assistance of AI tools or external prompts. Our interview process is designed to assess your individual skills, experiences, and communication style. We value authenticity and want to ensure we’re getting to know you—not a digital assistant. To help maintain this integrity, we ask to remove virtual backgrounds and include in-person interviews in our hiring process. Please note that use of AI-generated responses or third-party support during interviews will be grounds for disqualification from the recruitment process.

Applicants may be required to appear onsite at a Wolters Kluwer office as part of the recruitment process.