Engineering Manager - PHP

RM Education; Abingdon; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical healthcare

Life assurance

Group Personal Pension Plan

Additional annual leave

Dental plan

Health assessment

Cycle to work scheme

Referral bonus

Job summary

RM Education is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead a team responsible for building scalable education software. You will guide projects from concept to production, ensure robust design, and foster a culture of clean code and high performance.

With strong experience in PHP, relational databases, and cloud platforms, you’ll mentor engineers, drive TDD, maintain CI/CD pipelines, and uphold security and reliability as the system grows across complex distributed services.

Qualifications

• Substantial professional experience with PHP.
• Proven experience in technical leadership roles.
• Experience developing scalable software for large codebases.
• Strong knowledge of relational databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL).
• Commitment to Test-Driven Development (TDD).
• Deep knowledge of at least one major cloud provider.
• Experience designing and troubleshooting complex distributed systems.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines.
• Solid understanding of Security, Networking, and Database concepts.
• Familiarity with architecture principles (SOLID, DDD).
• Proven ability to own a feature from concept to production.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of engineers to deliver features end-to-end.
• Guide projects from concept through production, ensuring scalable and reliable solutions.
• Uphold coding standards and best practices, driving quality and performance.
• Collaborate across teams to integrate core features across services.
• Champion TDD, CI/CD, and secure design in all work.
• Own feature development from proposal to deployment and monitoring.

Skills

PHP

Technical leadership

Scalable software

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Test-Driven Development

Cloud provider

Distributed systems

CI/CD

Security

Networking

Database concepts

SOLID

DDD

Docker

Tools

Docker

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Overview

Would you like to help enrich the lives of learners around the world?

At RM, we’ve been pioneers of education technology since 1973. We provide technology and resources to the education sector, supporting over 20 million students and improving educational outcomes worldwide.

What we do helps learners at all stages of their lives, from preschool to higher education and professional qualification; we partner with schools, examination boards, governments, and professional organisations globally to make learning more accessible, more engaging, and more impactful.

RM operates through three divisions: Assessment (digital assessment and marking solutions), Technology (managed services, hardware, and software for schools), and TTS (educational resources).

Within the assessment market we are experts in providing solutions for online exam testing and marking and the management and analysis of educational data. We work with government ministries, exam boards and professional awarding bodies for high stakes assessment such as GCSEs, ALevels, and professional qualifications. Each year, our software is used globally to conduct hundreds of thousands of on-screen tests and to mark millions of paper-based scripts. For over a decade we have been partnering with the world’s leading awarding bodies to deliver intuitive, secure, and reliable e-marking solutions.

A BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standard) is applicable to this role, therefore appropriate security checks will be carried out as part of the recruitment process prior to any offer being made.

Responsibilities

As an Engineering Manager, you'll be at the forefront of managing your team and guiding projects from start to finish, ensuring seamless integration of key features throughout their lifecycle.

Your outstanding problem-solving skills and commitment to innovation will empower you to lead the team in building highly scalable and reliable applications. With a solid foundation in core software design principles like DDD, adapting to new technologies will be second nature to you.

You possess a strong sense of ownership and responsibility for the work you undertake. You take initiative in identifying areas for improvement and are proactive in suggesting and implementing solutions.

You are an excellent leader and communicator. As a mentor and advocate, you'll provide guidance and support to your team of engineers, empowering them to uphold coding standards, implement best practices, and maintain high levels of code quality and performance.

Experience

• Substantial professional experience with PHP
• Prior experience in a technical leadership role
• Proficiency in developing scalable software for large codebases
• Strong knowledge of relational databases, including PostgreSQL and MySQL
• Demonstrated commitment to Test-Driven Development (TDD)
• Deep knowledge of at least one major cloud provider
• Experience in designing, understanding, and troubleshooting complex distributed systems
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines
• Solid understanding of Security, Networking, and Database concepts
• Familiarity with standard project lifecycle processes
• Proactive and inquisitive nature, willing to undertake various responsibilities
• Proficiency in Docker
• Highly skilled in clean code architecture, application and systems architecture, and other principles/methodologies such as SOLID and DDD
• Upholds high standards for code quality, testing, and iterative, continuous delivery
• Excellent collaboration skills for pair programming and code reviews
• Experience owning a feature from concept to production, including proposal, discussion, and execution
• Experience with monitoring, alerting, and debugging high-volume production systems

What’s in it for you?

At RM we have My Work Blend @RM which provides office-based colleagues with multi location and hybrid working options. As well as your office base, you can spend a proportion of your time working at other locations that suit your role and your life, including home, other offices, customer sites, distribution centres or on the move. We encourage you to discuss arrangements for this role with your potential line manager during the recruitment process.

As well as a competitive salary and our core benefits package which includes private medical healthcare, life assurance and a Group Personal Pension Plan with higher contribution levels available.

• competitive salary
• private medical healthcare
• life assurance
• Group Personal Pension Plan with higher contribution levels available
• additional annual leave
• dental plan
• health assessment
• cycle to work scheme
• extra bonus for successfully recommending a friend or family member for a position within RM

There are lots of voluntary benefits too.

To better reflect the society that we serve, we’re committed to building a diverse workforce and creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all. To achieve this, we create teams of talented people from different backgrounds and experiences and strive to be a business where our people can bring their whole selves to work, we also want to make the recruitment process as inclusive as possible for everyone. Should you require additional support with your application or through the interview process, please contact us at [e-mail].

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.