Engineering Manager

The Wave; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

The Wave is seeking an Engineering Manager in London with hybrid working. You will lead a team responsible for building and maintaining core services, guiding architectural choices and ensuring delivery of high-scale platforms.

You’ll balance people leadership with hands-on technical influence, drive performance improvements, and collaborate with product leaders to shape the roadmap and engineering culture.

Qualifications

• Experience leading engineering teams in a fast-moving environment.
• Strong background building microservices for high-scale products.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and performance engineering.
• Comfortable balancing people leadership with hands-on technical influence.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor engineers across seniority levels.
• Drive sprint planning, delivery and technical direction.

Skills

Leadership

Microservices

Distributed systems

Backend development

Performance engineering

Kubernetes

Code reviews

Job description

Engineering Manager - £110,000-£140,000 + Equity - London (Hybrid) The Opportunity ? Join a high-performance technology company building complex, real-time platforms used globally at significant scale. The business operates mission-critical systems where performance, reliability and speed matter. It has a mature product with strong usage while continuing to evolve its architecture and engineering practices. You'll be stepping into a deeply technical environment where engineers work across modern distributed systems, event-driven architecture and high-throughput services. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who wants to shape both people and platform. About the Role ? You'll lead a team of engineers responsible for building and maintaining core product services.

• Manage and mentor engineers across different seniority levels
• Drive sprint planning, delivery and technical direction
• Partner closely with product and technical leadership on complex initiatives
• Improve engineering processes, quality and developer velocity
• Stay close to the code through reviews, pairing and technical guidance
• Help define future technology adoption and architecture direction

You’ll be accountable for outcomes, team health and technical standards.

What You’ll Be Working On ?

• Performance, scalability and reliability improvements
• Platform evolution and technical roadmap planning
• Hiring and growing a strong engineering team

You’ll balance people leadership with meaningful technical influence rather than stepping fully away from engineering.

Skills and Experience ?

• Strong background building microservices for high-scale products
• Experience with modern backend stacks
• Previous technical leadership or direct people management experience
• Solid understanding of distributed systems and performance engineering
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving environments
• Strong communicator who can align engineering with product goals

Nice to have:

• Exposure to Kubernetes, event streaming or high-throughput systems
• Experience in commercially complex product environments

Team: High standards, collaborative, delivery focused If you enjoy leading strong engineers while shaping complex systems that operate at scale, this is a role worth exploring.

• Strong background building microservices for high-scale products
• Experience with modern backend stacks
• Previous technical leadership or direct people management experience
• Solid understanding of distributed systems and performance engineering
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving environments
• Strong communicator who can align engineering with product goals

Nice to have:

• Exposure to Kubernetes, event streaming or high-throughput systems
• Experience in commercially complex product environments

? Team: High standards, collaborative, delivery focused If you enjoy leading strong engineers while shaping complex systems that operate at scale, this is a role worth exploring.