Engineering Manager

Company Overview

Metrea delivers effects-as-a-service to national security partners across five domains and more than a dozen mission areas—including airborne ISR, electronic warfare, secure communications, aerial refueling, special mission aviation, aerial firefighting, and advanced simulation. Wherever we operate, we build vertically integrated full stacks of capability—designing, building, and operating turnkey solutions that let customers scale capacity while benefiting from continuous cycles of innovation.

With operators and engineers under one roof, we close the gap between lab and field—what we call connecting design with effect. Metrea’s solutions are built for elegance: effective, efficient, and evolving. This approach enables our partners to do more with less and achieve outsized, asymmetric advantage against rapidly evolving threats. Headquartered in Washington, DC, Metrea has facilities across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond.

This role sits within the Digital and Synthetic Group (D&S). The D&S Group is committed to providing mission‑driven information solutions that seamlessly bridge the digital and physical realms. Leveraging cutting‑edge technologies and advanced platforms, we empower operational readiness and elevate situational awareness across diverse domains—including air, maritime, and space.

We are looking for an Engineering Manager to provide leadership for our internal knowledge management product as part of a product‑led cross‑functional software development team. Candidates should have solid knowledge and experience of best practices across the software development lifecycle, as well as excellent people leadership skills; they can be relied upon to build and maintain an engineering culture which is sustainably professional and positive, in which high‑performing engineers can grow and thrive.

Metrea is a people‑first organisation and candidates should have strong communication skills and the desire to proactively elevate their team through continuous knowledge sharing, collaboration, feedback, and mentorship.

• Lead and coach a team of highly talented engineers, taking responsibility for their career and personal development.
• Conduct regular catch‑ups and check‑ins with the team to support their day‑to‑day engineering activities.
• Support product management and the technical leadership in refining requirements and shaping the deliverables the team will work on.
• Help align team efforts with the broader strategic goals of the organisation, and plan for future resource requirements and technology adoption.
• Develop and maintain a deep relationship with the team’s Tech Lead and Product Manager to ensure alignment and support delivery.
• Unblock the team by identifying and resolving technical or operational bottlenecks, keeping them productive.
• Support initiatives across the business to improve engineering processes, code quality, release management and documentation.
• Assist with project scoping, capacity planning and resource allocation within the product development team.
• Take responsibility for hiring, onboarding and integrating new teammates into the product development team.

• Experience leading software development teams in fast‑growing companies, shaping ways of working rather than following pre‑defined ones.
• People‑leadership experience, having mentored and helped develop the careers of software engineers.
• Experience employing agile methodologies in software development processes while working in a matrix organisation to support the team’s ways of working.
• A passion for personal development and a drive to be constantly learning and furthering professional knowledge.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to work independently while planning, prioritising and managing workload.
• Great interpersonal skills, a servant‑leadership mindset and the ability to confidently communicate with others, conveying technical content clearly and articulately to non‑technical team members.
• Background as a software engineer is a plus. You won’t be writing code yourself but it’s important to understand the underlying…