Technical Operations Manager

We’re looking for someone to take ownership of the operational backbone behind our development and support teams. Not a coder. Not a CTO. Someone who makes the machinery run – the people, the processes, the infrastructure, the compliance – so our talented developers can focus on what they do best: building brilliant work for our clients.

This is a new role for Laser Red, and it’s a big one. You’ll sit in our Management Team, line manage our development and support teams, and be directly responsible for how our technical function operates day‑to‑day. If you’re the kind of person who bridges the gap between technical teams and the wider business – someone who’s equally comfortable in a 1:1 with a developer and a strategy meeting with directors – we want to hear from you.

Full‑time, permanent position (35 hours a week)

Hybrid – work from our Lincoln or Grimsby offices, or from home.

(Must be a UK resident with a valid driving licence)

As Laser Red has grown, our Lead Developers have taken on more and more management responsibility alongside their technical work. It’s meant less time coding, less time mentoring, and less time doing the things they’re genuinely brilliant at.

This role fixes that. You’ll take on the people management, operational oversight, and cross‑department coordination so our technical leads can get back to leading technically – setting standards, reviewing code, mentoring the team, and building great solutions.

You don’t need to be a web developer. You need to be a strong manager with a technical operations background who can earn the trust of a skilled team, bring structure without bureaucracy, and make things run better.

People management and team development. You’ll line manage our development team of around 10 people (including our Lead Backend and Lead Frontend Developers) plus our Support Manager and their team. That means regular 1:1s, performance reviews, career development conversations, recruitment, onboarding, and being the person who handles the day‑to‑day people stuff – workload concerns, conflict resolution, wellbeing. You’ll be their voice in the Management Team.

Capacity planning and resource allocation. Making sure the right people are working on the right things at the right time. You’ll own our internal scheduling and capacity tools, coordinate with Project Managers on project handovers, and keep an eye on utilisation – flagging burnout risks or gaps before they become problems.

Infrastructure and hosting. We manage hosting across multiple providers for 150+ client websites. You’ll own the hosting estate – performance, uptime, cost optimisation – and drive migration projects as we improve our infrastructure. You’ll work alongside our senior developers on technical architecture decisions; they own the direction, you own the operations and execution.

Security, compliance and governance. Cyber Essentials certification, GDPR compliance, accessibility standards, AI usage policy governance, and regular security reviews. You’ll own the compliance posture for the business and liaise with external assessors and auditors as needed.

R&D, innovation and continuous improvement. This is where it gets interesting. We want someone who’s naturally curious about better ways of working – someone who’ll research new tools, trial AI applications, evaluate emerging technologies, and then actually implement them across the team. Not just ideas, but execution. Training, rollout, adoption. You’ll champion our innovation time and make sure it delivers real value back to the business.

Tooling, systems and technical debt. We have internal tools for estimation, scheduling, and time tracking that need day‑to‑day management and adoption. You’ll also own the technical debt backlog – the housekeeping that keeps our infrastructure clean and our projects maintainable. Documentation standards, staging site hygiene, repository management, backup cleanup.

Reporting and data. Build and maintain operational dashboards that give leadership clear visibility on infrastructure costs, team utilisation, hosting profitability, and technical health. Not…