Engineering Manager

Motion Recruitment; Sydney; On-site; AUD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Motion Recruitment's client seeks an Engineering Manager to lead high-performing product engineering squads, partnering with Product Managers to deliver customer value while driving platform reliability and modern cloud architectures.

You will balance people leadership, delivery execution, and operational health, fostering accountability, continuous improvement, and technical excellence across four pillars: leadership, delivery & partnering, technical strategy, and operational excellence.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in software engineering, with 3+ years in formal engineering management or people leadership.
• Proven track record in people development, 1:1 coaching, hiring, and capability uplift.
• Strong background in cloud-native technologies (AWS, Microservices, Serverless) and modern programming stacks.
• Experience partnering with Product Managers to align technology roadmaps with business goals.

Responsibilities

• People Leadership & Coaching: Recruit, mentor, grow the engineering team; lead 1:1s and performance coaching.
• Delivery Execution & Product Partnering: Shape roadmaps with Product Managers; balance feature velocity with tech debt reduction; oversee end-to-end software delivery with Agile methodologies.
• Technical Strategy & Modernisation: Guide architectural decisions with Staff/Principal Engineers; drive cloud-native migration efforts; maintain robust engineering standards.
• Operational Excellence: Drive system reliability, observability, and incident response; monitor platform health using DORA metrics and ensure production availability.

Skills

People leadership

Delivery & product partnering

Cloud-native architectures

DevOps / observability

Communication

Job description

Our client is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to join their Product Engineering function. In this role, you will lead high-performing engineering squads, partnering closely with Product Managers to deliver meaningful customer value while driving platform reliability and modern cloud architectures.

As an Engineering Manager, you will operate as a pivotal people and technical leader. You will balance direct people leadership, delivery execution, and operational health. You'll be fostering a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.

Key responsibilities are split across four core pillars:

• People Leadership & Coaching (25%): Recruit, mentor, and grow a talented engineering team. You will lead 1:1s, performance coaching, career growth plans, and promote a psychologically safe, high-performing engineering culture.
• Delivery Execution & Product Partnering (25%): Partner directly with Product Managers/Owners to shape roadmaps, balance feature velocity with tech debt reduction, and oversee end-to-end software delivery using Agile methodologies.
• Technical Strategy & Modernisation (25%): Guide architectural decisions alongside Staff/Principal Engineers, driving cloud-native migration efforts and ensuring adherence to robust engineering standards and code quality.
• Operational Excellence (25%): Drive system reliability, observability, and incident response frameworks. You will monitor platform health (using DORA/SLO metrics) and maintain overall availability for production applications.

Our client is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to join their Product Engineering function. In this role, you will lead high-performing engineering squads, partnering closely with Product Managers to deliver meaningful customer value while driving platform reliability and modern cloud architectures.

As an Engineering Manager, you will operate as a pivotal people and technical leader. You will balance direct people leadership, delivery execution, and operational health. You'll be fostering a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.

Key responsibilities are split across four core pillars:

• People Leadership & Coaching (25%): Recruit, mentor, and grow a talented engineering team. You will lead 1:1s, performance coaching, career growth plans, and promote a psychologically safe, high-performing engineering culture.
• Delivery Execution & Product Partnering (25%): Partner directly with Product Managers/Owners to shape roadmaps, balance feature velocity with tech debt reduction, and oversee end-to-end software delivery using Agile methodologies.
• Technical Strategy & Modernisation (25%): Guide architectural decisions alongside Staff/Principal Engineers, driving cloud-native migration efforts and ensuring adherence to robust engineering standards and code quality.
• Operational Excellence (25%): Drive system reliability, observability, and incident response frameworks. You will monitor platform health (using DORA/SLO metrics) and maintain overall availability for production applications.

What We Are Looking For

• 7+ years in software engineering, with at least 3+ years in formal engineering management or people leadership roles.
• Proven track record in people development, 1:1 coaching, hiring, and capability uplift.
• Strong background in cloud-native technologies and architectures (e.g., AWS, Microservices, Serverless, Event-Driven Architecture) and modern programming stacks.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with Product Managers to align technology roadmaps with commercial business goals.
• Exposure to modern engineering and DevOps practices (CI/CD, TDD, pair programming, observability, DORA metrics).
• Strong focus on operational health, system availability, and incident response.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.