Engineering Manager (West Midlands)

McNally Recruitment Ltd; Oxford; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

McNally Recruitment Ltd in Oxford is seeking a Model Software Engineering Manager to lead 3–4 squads (roughly 15–20 engineers) building and operating models and the platform that runs them.

This is a management role with genuine technical credibility; you will guide delivery, coach engineers, and help drive hiring while maintaining strong collaboration with product and commercial stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 4–6+ years of engineering management experience.
• Strong software engineering background (AWS & Python).
• Hands-on Agile / Continuous Delivery experience in a software team.
• Proven track record of real performance conversations: feedback, development plans, follow-through.
• Strong delivery instincts to spot root causes of delivery issues.
• Experience owning hiring end-to-end across teams.
• Direct communicator with clear, decisive style.

Skills

Engineering management

Team leadership

Hiring end-to-end

Direct communication

Delivery instincts

Performance feedback

Software background

Tools

AWS

Python

CI/CD

Job description

We are working in collaboration to Source a Model Software Engineering Manager who will manager 3–4 squads (roughly 15–20 engineers) that build and operate these models and the platform that runs them. You’ll be responsible for supporting the team, ensuring delivery stays on track, and building a strong hiring pipeline.

This is a management role, not a technical lead role — but it requires genuine technical credibility. The team builds complex energy modelling software and platform infrastructure, and you need to understand enough of what your engineers are doing to have meaningful development conversations and to spot when a technical problem is causing a delivery problem. That credibility comes from having done technical work yourself.

Required attributes:

• 4–6+ years of engineering management experience with a track record of managing mixed technical teams.
• A software engineering background (ideally AWS & Python) — you have written production code in a professional context and can hold a technically credible conversation with a Senior or Principal engineer; you understand the work, not just the process around it.
• Hands-on experience implementing modern Agile / Continuous Delivery practices in a software team — you have raised a team's delivery maturity, not just operated within someone else's process.
• Proven track record of running real performance conversations: direct feedback, development plans, and follow-through — not just annual reviews.
• Strong delivery instincts — you know when a sprint is quietly going off the rails, and you can tell whether the root cause is technical or organisational.
• Experience owning hiring end-to-end: you have run a recruitment pipeline and can evaluate technical candidates in context.
• A direct communicator — you escape clearly and do not let difficult conversations drift.

Desirable attributes:

• Experience managing engineers across both platform/infrastructure and domain-specific software (scientific computing, data engineering, fintech, or similar).
• Commercial awareness — you connect engineering delivery to business outcomes and partner effectively with product and commercial stakeholders.
• Demonstrable interest in applying AI tooling to engineering delivery — requirements tooling, flow analytics, sprint automation; hands‑on experience doing so is a strong plus.