AI Native Engineering Manager (hands on)

numi; Manchester; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

numi is looking for an Engineering Manager to lead AI-native development and team growth in Manchester. This role involves hands-on engineering with a focus on guiding a cross-functional team while ensuring technical excellence. Responsibilities include managing deliveries, driving AI tooling adoption, and fostering a culture of collaboration. Candidates should have experience architecting production systems and managing engineering teams. This role emphasizes maintaining technical credibility and shaping the future of AI in engineering.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to architect and ship production systems.
• Strong experience with modern cloud platforms and serverless architectures.
• Demonstrated success in managing cross-functional engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Spend 50% of your time hands-on with engineering, writing code, and reviewing pull requests.
• Guide architectural decisions to ensure systems are secure and scalable.
• Drive AI tooling adoption across development workflows.

Skills

Architecting production systems

Cloud platforms expertise

Containerisation

Serverless architectures

AI-native engineering fluency

Communication (technical and non-technical)

Job description

Engineering Manager: AI-Native Development and Team Growth

The Opportunity

We are a leading media technology organisation seeking an Engineering Manager who wants to stay close to the code. This role exists for a leader to guide a cross-functional team at the intersection of technical excellence and business impact.

This is a unique chance to shape how AI transforms engineering practices within a modern technology environment. You will have the autonomy to experiment with emerging capabilities and the accountability to deliver meaningful results.

Your success will be measured by outcomes, delivery predictability, and engineering quality, creating an environment where talented engineers can do their best work.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Spend 50% of your time hands-on with engineering, writing code, and reviewing pull requests.
• Guide architectural decisions to ensure systems remain secure, scalable, maintainable, and observable.
• Drive AI tooling adoption across development workflows to accelerate team velocity.
• Champion technical debt reduction while balancing delivery speed with long-term system health.
• Lead predictable, high-quality delivery aligned with business objectives using small, frequent releases.
• Manage, coach, and develop a diverse team through regular feedback and meaningful one-to-one meetings.
• Cultivate an environment of psychological safety where team members feel empowered to share ideas.
• Own support coverage and participate actively in on-call rotations to lead incident management.

What They’re Looking For

• Proven ability to architect and ship production systems.
• Strong experience with modern cloud platforms, containerisation, and serverless architectures.
• AI-native engineering fluency, using AI assistants to accelerate development.
• Demonstrated success in managing cross-functional engineering teams.
• Excellent ability to communicate complex concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Nice to Have

• Background in video streaming technologies, OTT platforms, or media domains.
• Knowledge of multitenant architectures and CDN technologies.
• Experience leading platform transformations from monolithic to composable architectures.
• Familiarity with observability and monitoring tools for complex distributed systems.

Why Join?

This is engineering management for people who still love engineering, allowing you to build technical credibility through visible excellence rather than disappearing into meetings.

• Shape the future of AI-native engineering without mandating adoption from above.
• Foster a culture of knowledge sharing and cross-team collaboration.
• Lead ambitious goals built on core values of integrity, innovation, and collaboration.
• Maintain the autonomy to research and introduce emerging technologies.