Engineering Manager

Engineering Manager

Ocho People | Technology Recruitment

• Engineering Manager opportunity at a fast growing technology company in a mission critical, regulated domain
• AI first engineering culture, fluency with AI tooling is central to how this team works and delivers
• Hands on leadership role reporting directly to the CEO with full ownership of the engineering function
• Hybrid working from Derry/Londonderry, three days per week in office
• Salary up to £85,000 plus performance bonus

Our client is a technology company operating in a mission critical, regulated domain, having successfully delivered across multiple high profile UK campaigns. With their client base forecast to expand significantly over the next twelve to eighteen months, they are now investing in the engineering leadership that will take them through that growth. This is a small, focused organisation where the Engineering Manager is the most senior engineer in the building, reporting directly to the CEO and setting the bar for how software is built, shipped and maintained.

The stack is Type Script across the board, AWS native serverless architecture, and the team operates to ISO 27001 certification standards given the sensitivity of the data involved.

This is a hands on Engineering Manager position with full ownership of the engineering function. You will lead the team day to day, drive delivery against business goals, own engineering processes and tooling, and embed AI first practices across the entire development workflow. Working closely with the Senior Leadership Team, you will translate between engineering reality and business intent, push back where needed and negotiate scope and commitments without damaging relationships.

You will also own AWS spend, manage CI and CD, testing, observability and incident response, and contribute directly to architectural decisions and code reviews. This is not a purely managerial role, you will be expected to lead by example technically, using AI agents to build software and setting the standard for the team. If you are a hands on engineering leader who thrives in a high ownership, fast moving environment, this is worth a conversation.

• Lead the engineering team day to day including one to ones, performance management, hiring and team development
• Drive the adoption of AI across the engineering function from coding practice through design and review - set the standard and challenge engineers who are not using tools effectively
• Own engineering processes and tooling including CI and CD, code review, testing, observability and incident response
• Manage AWS spend and engineering capability spend with a genuine understanding of the architectural levers behind cloud cost
• Contribute to technical decisions, architectural guidance and code reviews as the most senior engineer in the organisation
• Manage relationships with senior business leadership, translating between engineering and business priorities
• Align engineering output with operational priorities, client needs and business timelines
• Set the cultural tone for the engineering function - the way you operate under pressure defines the floor for the team
• Operate independently and handle ambiguity - own problems end to end and make calls when the answer is not obvious

• Demonstrable AI fluency in your own engineering work, with evidence of driving AI adoption across at least one team
• A track record of managing engineers directly with examples of hiring, performance management and team development
• Experience reporting to or working closely with non-technical executive leadership
• Hands on engineering background with recent and credible experience in a modern web and cloud stack
• Comfortable operating as the sole senior engineering leader in a small, fast moving startup environment
• Composure and integrity under pressure - direct feedback, willingness to admit mistakes and calm under stress

• Experience with regulated or mission critical software environments
• Ownership of an engineering or cloud budget line
• Experience working effectively alongside third party delivery partners

• Salary up to…