Engineering Manager

Engineering Manager sought after in Derry Hybrid (min. 3 days per week in office) Competitive Salary + Bonus

About Our Client
Our client is a fast-growing technology company based in Derry, delivering mission-critical, ISO 27001-certified software for UK Election campaigns. Having successfully delivered against multiple UK election cycles, they're now entering a significant growth phase, with their client base forecast to expand substantially over the next 12-18 months.
This is a genuinely AI-first engineering culture - not as a buzzword, but as the operating standard. The team builds using AI agents day-to-day, and this hire will be central to embedding that practice across the function as the business scales.
It's a rare opportunity to join a small, high-trust team building regulated, high-stakes software, with real autonomy and a direct line to the CEO.

The Opportunity
Our client is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead their engineering team through its next phase of growth. This is a hands-on, delivery-focused leadership role for someone who wants to stay close to the code while owning the people, process, and output of a growing engineering function.
Reporting directly to the CEO, you'll be the most senior engineering voice in the business - setting technical standards, shaping how the team works, and translating between engineering reality and business priorities. You'll be the only senior engineering leader in the building, so this suits someone who's comfortable owning problems end-to-end and making calls without a safety net above them.

What You'll Be Doing
Leading the engineering team day-to-day - running 1:1s, setting performance expectations, hiring, developing people, and holding the line on quality
Driving AI adoption across the engineering function - from coding practice through design and code review - setting the standard and role-modelling the change
Managing relationships with senior leadership, translating between engineering reality and business intent, and negotiating scope without damaging trust
Owning engineering processes and tooling - CI/CD, code review, testing, observability, and incident response - improving them in the right sequence without breaking delivery
Owning AWS and engineering capability spend, understanding the architectural decisions that drive cloud cost
Leading by example - using AI agents to build software, reviewing pull requests with judgement, and weighing in on architecture
Setting the cultural tone for the engineering function - how you give feedback and behave under pressure sets the floor for the team

What We're Looking For
Demonstrable AI fluency in your own engineering work, with clear evidence of driving AI adoption within a team - this needs to be visible on your CV, as applications without it won't progress
A proven track record managing engineers directly - hiring, performance management, and team development
Experience reporting to or working closely with non-technical executive leadership
A hands-on engineering background, with recent, credible experience in a modern web and cloud stack
Composure and integrity under pressure - direct feedback, willingness to admit mistakes, and a calm head when things get difficult
Comfort operating in a small startup environment
Nice to have (not essential - you'll be supported to develop these):

Experience with UK election technology or other regulated, mission-critical software
Ownership of an engineering or cloud budget line
Experience working effectively alongside third-party delivery partners

The Tech Stack
Type Script across the stack
AWS-native serverless architecture, primarily Lambda
Relational and document-based data stores
Modern frontend
CI/CD pipelines on AWS, infrastructure as code via AWS CDK
ISO 27001 certified environment - you'll be working with sensitive election data to high security and compliance standards

What's On Offer
Market-competitive salary with a defined bonus on agreed targets
Hybrid working pattern - minimum 3 days per week in the Derry office
Free food and drinks from the onsite caf
Subsidised gym membership
Bike-to-work scheme
Flexible and hybrid working, including condensed hours

To find out more about this opportunity, in the strictest confidence, please get in touch.

Please note:

Applications can only be accepted from candidates who already hold the legal right to work in N. Ireland.
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