Engineering Manager

Lightdash; Greater London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A growing tech start-up in the UK is seeking an exceptional Engineering Manager to lead a high-velocity engineering team. The role demands a proven engineering leader experienced in shipping products quickly in fast-paced environments. Candidates should excel in coaching, have strong architectural instincts, and value speed and impact over perfection. If you're a pragmatic builder eager to innovate and push boundaries in technology, we want to hear from you. The ideal candidate will thrive in a startup culture with a focus on velocity and collaboration.

Qualifications

• Experience in engineering leadership roles in high-pressure environments.
• Strong architecture instincts and solid security knowledge.
• Proven ability to ship products rapidly in startup or growth contexts.

Responsibilities

• Coach, mentor, and unblock the engineering team daily.
• Make fast architectural and security decisions.
• Build best-in-class developer experience tooling and workflows.
• Ensure reliability while maintaining high velocity.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Deep technical expertise

Startup DNA

Velocity obsession

AI-first mindset

DevX focus

Execution focus

Tools

TypeScript

React

Node

SQL

Docker

GCP

Kubernetes

Job description

We’re seeking an exceptional Engineering Manager to join our small and growing team. This isn’t your typical EM role. We’re looking for a senior engineer who leads from the front and thrives in high-velocity, high-ownership environments. Your mission: build the fastest engineering team on the planet.

Who you are

You’re a top-tier engineer with proven leadership experience in fast-moving startups or scaleups. You’re comfortable making imperfect decisions quickly, you’ve built products under pressure, and you know that momentum beats perfection.

You might be

• A seasoned engineer who has already stepped into an EM role at a venture-backed startup
• An ex-founder who knows how to ship when the runway is short and the stakes are high
• A startup tech lead who thrives on ownership and bold decisions
• A pragmatic builder who values time-to-value over “the right way”

What makes you perfect for this role

• Engineering leadership: You’ve coached and unblocked engineers in high-velocity, high-pressure environments.
• Deep technical expertise: You have strong architecture instincts and solid security knowledge, but you’ll cut through complexity to keep shipping.
• Startup DNA: You’ve shipped product in 0→1 or hyper-growth contexts where speed and ownership were survival skills.
• Velocity obsession: You believe iteration > perfection, and your instinct is always to get value in front of users as fast as possible.
• AI-first: You’re bullish on AI, vibe-coding daily, and always looking for ways to push velocity through AI-assisted workflows.
• DevX focus: You obsess over developer experience because you know great tooling = more speed.
• Execution focus: Monitoring, observability, and performance aren’t “nice to haves” — they’re how you ship fast without breaking trust.

What you'll do

• Set the bar for engineering velocity — coaching, mentoring, and unblocking the team every day
• Make architectural and security calls fast, balancing speed with long-term resilience
• Build and own best-in-class developer experience — tooling and workflows that eliminate drag
• Monitor and protect reliability and SLAs, while still moving at startup speed
• Partner tightly with product and design to deliver rapid, end-to‑end iterations
• Establish a culture where iteration is celebrated and perfectionism is challenged

How we work at Lightdash

• We build in public. Open source means moving fast with shared context.
• We challenge problems, not people. No blame, just solutions.
• We’re highly collaborative. Independent, but we win as a team (and with our community).
• We bias hard toward impact. We’d rather ship the wrong thing quickly and learn, than waste weeks polishing what nobody needs.

Our tech stack

• Primary: TypeScript, React, Node, SQL
• Frameworks: Express, React-hooks, Redux, RTK, Mantine
• Infrastructure: Docker, GCP, Kubernetes, Tracing, Prometheus

While familiarity with our stack is helpful, we value your ability to learn and adapt over specific technical experience.

⚡ We’re deliberately looking for ambitious leaders from startups and high-growth companies. If you want predictability, long roadmaps, and “the right way” over speed, this isn’t the role for you.

👉 Research shows that women and underrepresented groups often don’t apply unless they meet 100% of the requirements. Even if you don’t tick every box, if you have startup experience and a hunger for velocity, we’d love to hear from you.