Readiness is
not a feeling,
it is a decision...

ROLE: Finance Transformation Lead

CONTRACT:       18-Month Fixed-Term Contract

LOCATION:         Dublin

Barden have been selected to work exclusively with our client, a well-established business that is undertaking a major finance and systems transformation programme. They are seeking a Finance Lead – Transformation to act as the senior Finance owner of an ERP implementation (with a parallel CRM rollout).

Reporting into senior sponsors, you’ll be the primary Finance driver of the programme, bridging Finance, subject matter experts and external implementation partners.

What you’ll do:

• Lead the ERP implementation from a Finance perspective, owning design decisions across core modules (Record to Report, Order to Cash, GL, Procure to Pay, Commercial Pricing)
• Coordinate and challenge Finance subject matter leads, bringing cohesion and consistency across workstreams
• Act as the “finance conscience” of the programme, ensuring solutions support real-world finance operations
• Provide structured input into Steerco forums, flagging risks, issues and decisions. Work closely with established programme resources to ensure finance perpsectives are clearly articulated and understood at programme level.
• Drive Finance readiness across multiple regions and operations through to go-live and cutover

What you’ll bring:

• Qualified accountant (Big 4 or industry trained) or senior finance professional
• Proven experience on at least one ERP/CRM implementation in a finance-led role
• Strong understanding of how finance teams operate day to day
• A track record of bridging Finance, IT and external delivery partners
• Comfortable operating at both strategic and granular levels

This is an 18-month fixed-term contract offering the chance to shape a high-profile enterprise transformation from the Finance seat.

ROLE:                 Product Manager – Data Platform

LOCATION:        Cork (Hybrid – 2–3 days per week in the office)

ABOUT THE ROLE:

This is an opportunity to join a business building a next-generation data platform that underpins advanced risk, finance and AI-driven analytics capabilities. As Product Manager | Data Platform, you will play a key role in shaping the data infrastructure layer that powers a suite of enterprise analytics products. Working closely with Engineering and Data teams, you will help deliver a modern platform built on Snowflake while also supporting the evolution of Business Intelligence and emerging AI capabilities.

This role is ideal for a Product Manager with 3–5 years’ experience who enjoys working in highly technical environments, collaborating closely with engineering teams, and contributing to foundational platform capabilities that enable broader product innovation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Drive delivery of core data platform initiatives across ingestion, transformation and presentation layers.
• Translate technical and business requirements into clear, prioritised product backlogs.
• Partner closely with Engineering and Data teams to deliver scalable and reliable platform capabilities.
• Support the development of Business Intelligence and AI-enabled product features.
• Participate in customer workshops, usability testing and advisory sessions to translate feedback into platform improvements.
• Manage dependencies across multiple workstreams, balancing delivery priorities, quality and technical debt.
• Identify opportunities to improve platform performance, reliability and developer experience.

ABOUT THE PERSON:

This role will suit a technically minded Product Manager who enjoys working at the intersection of data, engineering and product. You’re comfortable with ambiguity, confident engaging with technical stakeholders, and motivated by building the foundational systems that enable advanced analytics and AI-driven products. This role offers strong exposure to experienced Product leaders and the opportunity to take ownership of meaningful initiatives from day one.

Required Skills and Competencies:

• Minimum of 3–5 years’ Product Management experience in B2B SaaS, enterprise software or data/analytics environments.
• Proven experience delivering software products end-to-end from discovery through to release.
• Strong technical curiosity and confidence engaging in discussions around APIs, data models, pipelines and platform architecture.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience working in Agile delivery environments.
• Exposure to modern data technologies (e.g. Snowflake, Databricks, ETL/ELT pipelines, SQL, BI tools) is highly advantageous.
• Interest in AI/ML concepts and their application in enterprise platforms.
• Strong problem-solving ability with a talent for simplifying complexity.

If you’re looking to develop your Product Management career in a highly technical, data-led environment with significant investment in AI and platform capability, we’d love to hear from you.

Senior Software Engineer (PHP) – Contract Role (6 Months)

Remote (Ireland) | Daily Rate / Temp Contract

Barden is delighted to support a leading tech company in their search for an experienced Software Engineer. This person will join a global product engineering team working on large-scale, high-availability systems that support critical financial and compliance-related functionality.

This is a 6-month contract opportunity, offered on either a daily rate or temporary contract basis. The role can be worked fully remotely within Ireland, with very occasional travel to a Dublin office.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will design, build, and maintain scalable backend services, taking ownership of key engineering initiatives and delivering solutions to complex technical challenges. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to develop and enhance business-critical systems while contributing to a collaborative engineering culture.

You will:

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services using PHP
• Build and support high-volume, business-critical applications
• Contribute to system design, architecture discussions, and technical decision-making
• Participate in code reviews and promote engineering best practices
• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and stakeholders across multiple teams
• Deploy code regularly through modern CI/CD processes
• Implement and maintain monitoring, logging, and observability solutions
• Support and mentor team members through knowledge sharing, pairing, and technical guidance

ABOUT YOU:

• Strong commercial experience developing backend applications in PHP
• Experience building and maintaining scalable, production-grade systems
• Experience working within agile, cross-functional teams
• Strong communication and collaboration skills
• Previous mentoring or coaching experience would be beneficial
• Exposure to payments, financial services, tax, compliance, or regulated environments is a plus

Contract Details:

• 6-month contract (leave coverage)
• Daily rate or temporary contract available
• Fully remote within Ireland
• Very occasional travel to Dublin office required

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced PHP engineer to join a globally recognised technology business. Whether you’re between contracts or looking for your next challenge, you’ll gain valuable experience in a world-class engineering environment while contributing to products used by millions of customers worldwide.

Applicants must be currently residing in Ireland and eligible to work in Ireland.

Barden is delighted to partner with a leading organisation in their search for an AI Engineer to join their team. This person will work across both business and engineering functions to design, build, and deploy production-ready AI agents that deliver measurable business value.

ABOUT THE ROLE (AI Engineering | Agentic AI | Python)

You will lead the design and delivery of production-grade AI agents on an internal Agentic AI platform, while partnering closely with business stakeholders to identify and shape high-value use cases.

Responsibilities will include:

• Translating business problems into well-defined agentic solutions through structured discovery and requirements gathering
• Engineering and iterating agent prompts and instructions (context engineering) to ensure consistent, reliable behaviour
• Building and configuring MCP-based integrations, including defining tool contracts and troubleshooting tool execution issues
• Developing MCP servers to wrap external APIs and internal systems with proper authentication, error handling, and logging
• Designing end-to-end agentic workflows, including retrieval, tool use, and analytics/AI model integration
• Managing and improving file-based knowledge bases, including ingestion, organisation, and RAG optimisation
• Creating and maintaining search indexes for document corpora where required
• Designing and executing evaluation frameworks using offline test sets, regression testing, and metrics tracking (e.g. MLflow)

ABOUT YOU

• A hybrid profile combining strong software engineering capability with business-facing communication skills and a passion for applied AI systems.
• Ability to assess AI use case feasibility, complexity, and business value (including ROI framing and prioritisation)
• Experience acting as a bridge between technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Focus on end-user experience and business outcome optimisation

AI Engineering

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience, preferably backend-focused (Python preferred but flexible)
• 2+ years of experience building LLM-powered applications, including AI agents, RAG systems, or tool-using systems
• Strong understanding of LLM behaviour, including context windows, tokenisation, hallucinations, latency, and cost trade-offs
• Familiarity with secure authentication patterns including OAuth 2.0 / OIDC and identity platforms such as Azure Entra ID
• Strong software engineering fundamentals including Git, testing, code reviews, logging, and monitoring
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work in an Agile, cross-functional team environment

OTHER DETAILS

• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge Agentic AI systems in a highly applied, production-focused environment
• Strong focus on real-world value delivery, evaluation, and continuous improvement of AI agents

If this role aligns well with your experience, please apply here or contact rachel.mcguckian@Barden.ie for more information.

Senior QA Automation Engineer | Cork City (Hybrid)

I’m working with an exciting client in Cork City that is heavily investing in AI and looking to hire a Senior QA Automation Engineer to join their growing team.

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone with 5+ years’ experience in test automation who wants to make a real impact in a collaborative, fast-moving environment.

Key responsibilities/experience required:

• Design, build, and maintain automated test suites for core functionality and regression testing using Python and Playwright.
• Develop and maintain BDD test coverage using Behave (Gherkin) where appropriate.
• Leverage Claude Code and Cursor to accelerate test development, debugging, and test maintenance.
• Integrate automated testing into Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines to ensure fast, reliable feedback loops.

What’s on offer?

• Hybrid working: 3 days per week in the Cork city centre office
• Innovative company with a strong focus on AI
• Excellent culture and supportive team environment
• Opportunity to grow with the business and influence quality practices as the company scales

If you’re a Senior QA Automation Engineer with experience in the technologies listed above, please apply using the link below.

ROLE:                 Senior Manager, Finance Transformation

LOCATION:        Dublin South | Hybrid

CONTRACT:       12-month contract

Barden are delighted to partner with a high-profile Irish PLC on the appointment of a Senior Manager Finance Transformation. An exciting opportunity to play a key leadership role within a global finance transformation function, driving large-scale change across systems, processes and reporting.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

Key responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of global finance transformation initiatives, ensuring solutions are effectively implemented, embedded, and adopted across the organisation to deliver measurable business value
• Act as a critical conduit between Finance, Technology and Data teams, translating business needs into scalable system and process solutions, while ensuring alignment with overall strategic objectives
• Drive finance process optimisation across end-to-end workflows, identifying opportunities to simplify, standardise and automate processes to improve efficiency, control, and data integrity
• Champion the use of automation and digital tools to reduce manual intervention, enhance reporting capabilities, and enable more timely, insight-driven decision-making
• Partner closely with technical teams to shape solution design, ensuring finance requirements are clearly defined, prioritised, and delivered in a practical and sustainable way
• Proactively identify and evaluate emerging technologies, including AI and advanced analytics, to support the evolution of a more data-led, digitally enabled finance function
• Lead and influence the prioritisation of transformation initiatives across the finance function, balancing business needs, resource constraints, and strategic impact
• Embed robust governance and control frameworks into all transformation activities, ensuring compliance with SOX and audit requirements by design
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement, encouraging innovation, ownership, and accountability across finance teams and transformation programmes
• Support and enable finance stakeholders through change, ensuring business readiness and building capability in new systems, tools, and ways of working

ABOUT THE PERSON:  

What you will ideally need:

• Qualified ACA or ACCA professional with significant post-qualification experience and a strong foundation in finance and business operations.
• Proven track record delivering finance transformation, process improvement and automation initiatives within complex environments.
• Strong programme and stakeholder management capabilities, with experience influencing and collaborating across multiple functions.
• Commercially minded problem-solver who can translate complexity into clear, actionable solutions and drive change effectively.
• Experience working with enterprise finance systems, reporting tools and data-driven transformation programmes; knowledge of SOX and controls environments is highly desirable.

A large, multi-site UK & Ireland services organisation is creating a brand new, business facing leadership role to fix fragmented reporting and build a centralised reporting and insights capability from scratch. They’re mid-way through a major cloud data platform (Microsoft Fabric) rollout and want this hire shaping its reporting and governance structure from here on.

About the Role:

• Own enterprise reporting strategy and standards across the business (excluding finance).
• Move reporting from fragmented and reactive to standardised, trusted, and insight-led – with a path toward predictive/AI-driven insights.
• Define common KPIs, data definitions, and governance; tackle current data access/security gaps.
• Be the single point of accountability for reporting demand and prioritisation.
• Build and lead a reporting/analytics team (currently none exists).
• Present insights directly to senior leadership and exec forums.

About the Person:

• Track record operating at Head of / senior leadership level in reporting, BI, analytics, or performance management.
• Demonstrated success owning enterprise-wide reporting strategy and driving standardisation across a large, complex organisation.
• Credible and influential at C-suite and board level, with a track record of shaping how a business makes decisions.
• Bonus: multi-site/regulated experience, Power BI/Fabric/Databricks exposure, data lake/platform transformation leadership.
• An outsider’s perspective is welcome – they want someone to challenge how things are done.