Engineering Manager

numi; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Two-week interview process

Shape an engineering team in a brand‑新

Automation and ownership culture

Job summary

Our client, a major UK payments acceptance business, is carving out a standalone tech organisation in London with hybrid work. The Engineering Lead will build and lead an engineering team from the ground up, set foundations, and define the culture, standards, and ways of working for the entire function.

You'll shape roadmaps with Product and other leaders, and champion continuous delivery, automation and ownership across approximately 12 teams as headcount grows toward 100–200 engineers.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading engineering teams in high-growth environments.
• Ability to challenge architectural decisions and guide engineers through complex problems.
• Experience building teams or platforms from the ground up.
• Track record delivering complex software in fast-moving contexts.
• Experience hiring, mentoring, and shaping engineering culture.

Responsibilities

• Build, lead and develop a high-performing engineering team with hiring and mentoring.
• Set technical direction and provide architectural guidance for scalable decisions.
• Own engineering delivery balancing quality, speed and business priorities.
• Establish standards and ways of working from day one with pragmatic structure.
• Collaborate with Product and other leaders to shape roadmaps and strategy.
• Promote continuous delivery, automation, and ownership across teams.
• Stay technically close to the team through code reviews and problem solving.
• Foster a culture of accountability and collaboration across teams.

Skills

People leadership

Architectural direction

Delivery ownership

Hiring & mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

Fintech domain experience

Ambiguity tolerance

Hands-on technical involvement

Tools

Rust

Kotlin

TypeScript

Job description

Location: London, hybrid, 2 to 3 days a week in the office (Canary Wharf)

Salary: £120k to £140k+ depending on experience

The opportunity

Our client is a major UK payments acceptance business being carved out of a large bank to become a standalone company. They're building a new engineering organisation from scratch, with its own software, teams and culture.

Product engineering will grow to 100 to 200 engineers across around 12 teams, and only a handful of those hires have been made so far.

As an Engineering Lead, you'll play a pivotal role in shaping this new organisation. You'll build and lead an engineering team, establish the technical foundations and ways of working, and help create an environment where engineers can do their best work. The people who join now will have a genuine opportunity to influence the direction, culture and standards of the entire engineering function.

What you'll be doing

• Build, lead and develop a high-performing engineering team, including hiring, mentoring and growing engineering talent.
• Set technical direction and provide architectural guidance, ensuring the team makes pragmatic, scalable engineering decisions.
• Take ownership of engineering delivery, balancing technical quality, speed and business priorities.
• Establish engineering standards, practices and ways of working from day one, creating structure without unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Work closely with Product and other engineering leaders to shape roadmaps, prioritisation and technical strategy.
• Champion a culture of continuous delivery, automation, simplicity and engineering ownership.
• Remain technically close to the team, contributing to code reviews, architectural decisions and technical problem-solving.
• Build a culture of accountability and collaboration where teams own what they build, run and maintain.
• Help shape the wider engineering organisation as it scales, influencing how teams are structured and how engineering operates.

What we're looking for

• Proven experience leading and developing engineering teams within a high-growth fintech or technology business.
• A strong technical background, with the ability to challenge architectural decisions and guide engineers through complex technical problems.
• Experience building teams, products, platforms or engineering functions from the ground up.
• A track record of delivering complex software engineering projects in fast-moving environments.
• Experience hiring, mentoring and developing engineers, creating a strong and collaborative engineering culture.
• Comfortable operating with ambiguity, incomplete information and changing priorities.
• Able to balance hands-on technical involvement with people leadership and delivery accountability.
• Low ego: calm, collaborative and happy to challenge convention or change your mind.
• The right to work in the UK (visa sponsorship not available).

Bonus points if you have

• Experience within payments or financial services.
• Rust experience, or a strong interest in it.
• Kotlin on the back end and TypeScript on the front end.
• Experience scaling engineering teams through significant periods of growth.

What's on offer

• A two-week process from application to offer, no long drawn-out interview process.
• The opportunity to build and shape an engineering team within a brand-new standalone technology business.
• An engineering culture built on automation, simplicity, ownership and transparency.