Engineering Manager L3

ZipRecruiter; London; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a leading global SaaS company as their Engineering Manager III, where you'll lead a team of talented engineers in a hybrid work setup. This role is focused on building exceptional engineering talent, fostering a culture of accountability, and driving engineering excellence across product teams. Ideal candidates will possess extensive leadership experience in customer-facing SaaS environments and a proven ability to develop high-performing teams.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in engineering leadership, mainly in customer-facing SaaS.
• Experience with competency, progression, and performance frameworks.
• Hands-on experience in defining engineering KPIs.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coach approximately 20 engineers across multiple product teams.
• Establish and safeguard engineering standards and drive team accountability.
• Shape career development paths for engineers and build a strong community.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Performance Management

Cross-functional Team Building

Engineering Standards

Communication

Job description

Job Description

Engineering Manager III

Location: UK Based - Hybrid Circa Once Per Month in London Central

Type: Permanent, Full-time

Salary: £100k – £160k bonus + benefits

Sector: Enterprise-scale, Client-Facing SaaS Products

Realta is partnering with a fast-growing global SaaS company whose platforms are used directly by thousands of enterprise customers every day. We need a people-first Engineering Manager—someone who has already led product-engineer teams in customer-facing SaaS environments—to develop exceptional engineers, raise standards, and build a culture of accountability and excellence across multiple product teams.

This isn’t about running projects. It’s about building great people, stronger teams, and long-term capability.

What the Role Owns

• Lead and coach circa 20 engineers across several cross-functional product squads (dev, QA, data, automation).
• Define and evolve a competency framework that drives transparent growth, feedback, and performance across the engineering org.
• Shape career development, performance, and progression—setting the bar high and helping engineers reach it.
• Partner with DevOps, Product, and Architecture to keep engineering capability aligned with commercial outcomes.
• Establish, scale, and safeguard engineering standards: what “good” looks like, how it’s measured, and how teams move toward it with clarity, autonomy, and trust.

What This Leader Drives

• Engineering excellence—from code quality to DORA metrics and delivery accountability.
• A culture of ownership—teams that take smart risks, make sound trade-offs, and own outcomes.
• Clear progression paths—structured, meaningful routes for engineers to grow … and stay.
• Team-level coaching—unblocking, mentoring tech leads, ensuring people thrive.
• A strong Engineering Community of Practice—shared standards, tooling, metrics, and principles.

This is a long-term hire, not a firefighting post. The goal: help engineers become great, not merely deliver faster.

Ideal Profile

• 10 + years in engineering leadership, most of it in external, customer-facing SaaS companies.
• Proven history of building high-performing, cross-functional product teams at scale.
• Ability to convert business metrics into actionable engineering objectives (and push back when they’re wrong).
• Hands-on experience creating or running competency, progression, and performance frameworks.
• Fluent in engineering KPIs: velocity, refactor cadence, escaped-bug rate, deployment frequency, etc.
• Technically credible—able to engage senior engineers and ask the right questions.

A Word from Realta

This is not a role for people who just manage tasks. It’s for a leader who treats engineering as a craft, builds skilled people, and levels them up through clarity, feedback, and uncompromising standards. Success is measured by how good your teams become, not just how many features ship.

Please Skip If…

• Your leadership background is limited to internal IT or agency delivery.
• Career coaching, performance reviews, and tough feedback aren’t your strengths.
• You’re chasing a delivery-only post without responsibility for people development.

Ready to build a stronger engineering organisation—not just a faster one?

Apply now or message Tom at Realta for a confidential briefing.