<p>A rare opportunity to build the next generation of executive community knowledge sharing app.</p><p>Apella is the SaaS &amp; Community arm of ABM Alliance, a business that&rsquo;s spent the last 6 years building one of the most globally recognised executive engagement engines in the B2B world.</p><p>ABM Alliance didn&rsquo;t grow by following the playbook. We reshaped what &ldquo;Executive Engagement&rdquo; and &ldquo;knowledge sharing&rdquo; look like in practice, moving the market away from passive conference attendance and towards curated, high-trust, outcomes-led engagement. Over the last 6 years, we&rsquo;ve obsessed on quality, relevance, and measurable value for our partners, driving the right senior executives to the right room, with the right intent, and we&rsquo;ve built a reputation for doing it consistently, at scale.</p><p>That track record is the foundation Apella is being built on.</p><p>We&rsquo;re now taking everything we&rsquo;ve learned from ABM Alliance and turning it into a dedicated Community Platform that supports always-on executive knowledge sharing and connection, not just event-day value.</p><p>This role is for someone who wants to join at the beginning of that journey and have a genuine voice in what gets built, how it&rsquo;s built, and what &ldquo;good&rdquo; looks like. You will be the technical authority and delivery lead for the Community Platform, driving the build of a modern platform core while keeping the legacy system stable (critical fixes only, no expansion, no distractions).</p><p>If you&rsquo;re a hands-on engineering leader who can move fast without cutting corners, protect scope, and hold partners to account, this is a standout opportunity.</p><p><b>What you will be doing</b></p><p>You&rsquo;ll be the technical authority for Apella&rsquo;s Community Platform, and the person accountable for getting it shipped within a 9-month window and then continuing to iterate the product beyond launch.</p><p>That means owning the architecture and the hard decisions. Modular by design, clean separation from legacy, security-first, and scalable without over-engineering. You&rsquo;ll challenge partner designs, estimates and delivery plans, and keep the build aligned end-to-end across backend, frontend, infrastructure and data.</p><p>You&rsquo;ll run delivery from foundations through MVP, integration/hardening, then pilot and parallel run, translating product intent into real engineering scope, and protecting focus. When distractions appear (rewrites, real-time ambitions, AI/networking creep, off-scope features), you&rsquo;ll be the clear &ldquo;no&rdquo; that keeps us shipping what matters.</p><p>At the same time, you&rsquo;ll enforce a dual-track model: <b>Track A </b>is a protected focus on the new platform; <b>Track B</b> is legacy stability for critical fixes only. You&rsquo;ll set triage rules, escalation thresholds and rotation so legacy doesn&rsquo;t derail the roadmap or burn the team out.</p><p>You&rsquo;ll be the senior technical counterpart to delivery partners, holding them to the plan, challenging assumptions, and keeping technical decision-making inside Apella.</p><p>You&rsquo;ll set the standards for quality and security (testing, CI/CD, observability, OWASP readiness), own go-live acceptance, and ensure documentation and knowledge transfer are strong enough that the platform is supportable after launch.</p><p>You&rsquo;ll lead a small senior engineering group through clarity, pace and accountability, balancing speed with correctness, and building capability, not dependency.</p><p><b>Required experience and skills</b></p><p><b>Essential</b></p><ul><li>Proven experience leading complex platform or product rebuilds</li><li>Strong backend engineering background (PHP/Laravel or equivalent)</li><li>Experience delivering modern web platforms (React/Next.js or similar)</li><li>Deep understanding of system architecture, API design, authentication and RBAC, cloud infrastructure and CI/CD</li><li>Demonstrated ability to control scope, push back on stakeholders, and make pragmatic technical trade-offs</li><li>Experience working with and challenging external delivery partners</li></ul><p><b>Highly desirable</b></p><ul><li>Experience running parallel legacy and greenfield systems</li><li>Prior responsibility for platform security and production readiness</li><li>Background in SaaS, community platforms, or enterprise B2B products</li><li>Comfortable operating credibly at Board and Exec level</li><li>Personal attributes</li><li>Calm under pressure</li><li>Decisive and structured thinker</li><li>Commercially aware</li><li>Comfortable saying &ldquo;no&rdquo;</li><li>Respected technical authority</li><li>Low-ego, high-accountability leadership style</li></ul><p><b>Success measures (first 9 months)</b></p><ul><li>Community Platform Core launches on time</li><li>Scope is controlled, and delivery discipline is maintained</li><li>Legacy stability is preserved without distracting the core team</li><li>Partners deliver to plan without architectural drift</li><li>The platform is secure, supportable, and extensible</li><li>Apella exits the 9-month window in a position to scale</li></ul><p><b>Location</b></p><p>On-site at Jubilee Place, Bristol, BS1 6PE on your scheduled working days.</p><p><b>Compensation</b></p><p>Competitive package based on experience, with real scope to grow into a broader technology leadership role as Apella scales. We&rsquo;re only speaking to a small number of high-calibre operators for this hire. If your instinct is to take control, protect scope, and ship something that genuinely matters, please get in contact, and we&rsquo;ll set up an initial conversation. If there&rsquo;s a fit, we&rsquo;ll invite you into our recently renovated offices in the heart of Bristol to meet the team and walk through the details of the build.</p><p>For the right individual, this will be a career-defining role. It&rsquo;s a rare seat at the start of the journey</p><p>Job Type: Full-time</p><p>Pay: &pound;50,000.00-&pound;80,000.00 per year</p><p>Work Location: In person</p>