Engineering Manager/Lead

The Lead Agency; Liverpool; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual training budget

AI coding tools licences

Cycle to work

Social calendar

Job summary

TLA is rebuilding its consumer platform on a modern Node.js stack with an AI-first engineering function. We’re hiring an Engineering Manager to lead a small, senior team through this rebuild, owning delivery, process, and developer growth.

You’ll balance hands-on coding with people leadership, shaping who joins, onboarding, and how the team evolves as the platform scales and AI tooling becomes central.

Qualifications

• Experience leading a small engineering team and mentoring engineers.
• Strong product instinct and ability to prioritize work.
• Experience with AI-first development practices.
• Comfort working in a Node/TS/React stack.

Responsibilities

• Own the team\'s output and interface with product and senior leadership.
• Mentor engineers and invest in career development.
• Contribute code and review designs.
• Improve team processes, deployment hygiene, and rituals.
• Advance spec-driven, AI-first practice.
• Lead hiring and onboarding.

Skills

Leadership & mentorship

People development

Strong communication

Product and business instinct

Tools

Node.js

TypeScript

React

Next.js

Azure

AWS

GCP

Job description

TLA, an automotive marketing business founded 24 years ago, helps the world’s biggest car brands — Volkswagen, BMW, Ford and others — reach in-market buyers. Our consumer sites (Green.Car, Askaprice, Car Keys and more) capture and qualify hundreds of thousands of car-buying intents annually, and our platforms validate and route those leads to the brands that want them.

We’re at an inflection point. We’re rebuilding our consumer-facing platform from the ground up on a modern Node.js stack, and we’re doing it as an AI-first engineering function.

We’re an established, profitable business with two decades of relationships at the heart of UK automotive marketing. The engineering rebuild reflects where we want the next decade to come from.

The role

We’re hiring an Engineering Manager to lead a small engineering team through the consumer platform rebuild — owning what the team delivers, how the team works, and how its engineers grow.

You’ll be hands-on with the team day-to-day, but the role isn’t built around being the deepest technical expert on every problem the team is working on. It’s about making sure the team has the right people, the right process, and the right environment to do their best work — and bringing judgement, prioritisation, and unblocking when that’s what’s needed. You’ll need real technical depth to do that well — enough to engage credibly with the problems the team’s working on, even when you’re not the deepest expert in the room.

This is a role for someone who genuinely enjoys growing engineers and improving how a team works — and who brings the technical depth and product instinct to do it well.

The engineering team is small and senior, and we’re in a deliberate hiring phase to grow it around the new platform and the AI-first practice. As the Engineering Manager, you’ll be directly involved in shaping who joins, how they’re onboarded, and how the team develops as it grows.

The opportunity

A few things make this role interesting right now. A new consumer-facing platform is well underway — foundational architecture in place, plenty still to build — and the team building it is small, senior, and just starting to grow. That makes this an unusual opportunity to shape a team as it scales: how it hires, how it works, and how it develops, alongside delivering a platform that matters. We’re rebuilding the engineering function itself as an AI-first one — and we’re further along than most. Spec-driven development is already core to how we work, a deliberate alternative to ‘vibe coding’ that keeps quality high as we build with AI. For engineers who haven’t yet had the chance to work this way, that’s a rare opportunity. The work reaches hundreds of thousands of car buyers and the biggest brands in automotive.

What you’ll do

• Own what the team delivers — accountable for the team’s output, and the bridge between the team and product and senior leadership
• Grow the engineers on the team through 1:1s, feedback, mentoring, and active investment in career development
• Stay hands-on technically — contributing code, reviewing designs, and bringing judgement and unblocking when needed
• Shape and continuously improve how the team works — process, code review practice, deployment hygiene, rituals
• Help deepen our spec-driven, AI-first practice — and lead by example in your own work
• Help build the team — interviewing, onboarding, and contributing to hiring decisions

What we’re looking for

• Track record of leading and growing a small engineering team — with real experience mentoring engineers and investing in their career development
• Strong technical depth — credible in our stack (Node/TypeScript with React/Next.js) without needing to be the deepest expert
• Cloud experience — Azure ideal, AWS / GCP fine
• Fluency with and genuine interest in how a team works — process, rituals, code review practice, deployment hygiene — and a track record of improving it
• Considered judgement about technology choices — adopting new tools and patterns when they’re right, sticking with proven ones when they’re not
• Demonstrated fluency with modern AI coding tools — and interest in helping the team build that fluency too
• A strong product and business instinct — understanding why the team is building something, not just what

Helpful

• Experience helping a team adopt AI tooling as part of normal practice
• Background in marketing tech, automotive, or consumer-facing data-rich businesses

Where you’ll work

We’re a Liverpool-based business with two days a week (Monday and Tuesday) together in our city centre office. The rest of the week is from home. For this role we’re looking for someone within commuting distance of Liverpool.

We’ve thought hard about location for this role and chosen hybrid over remote: the rebuild is at a stage where in-person design conversations matter, and we want our senior engineers in the room shaping the function as well as the code. You’ll work closely with our product and engineering leadership team, along with the wider technology function.

• Annual training and conference budget
• Modern engineering tools, including paid licences for AI coding tools as standard
• Cycle to work programme
• Active social calendar including charity sporting events

This role is open only to candidates with the right to work in the UK without sponsorship, now or in the future.