Manager, Software Engineering

SugarAI; Metropolitan Borough of Solihull; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

SugarAI is seeking an Engineering Manager to guide a rebuilding engineering organization in an AI-first world. You will shape team culture, define operating rhythms, and set performance expectations while coaching engineers through change.

You will champion spec-driven development, integrate generative AI tooling, and align delivery with business priorities, partnering with product and stakeholders to drive impact.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of direct engineering management experience.
• Proven ability to guide teams through significant change such as mergers or restructures.
• Strong technical credibility with a software development background.
• Clear point of view on the future of software engineering including AI-first approaches.
• Fluency in engineering metrics and delivery operations.
• Excellent communication across engineers and senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of engineers with structured 1:1s and career planning.
• Rebuild team culture emphasizing psychological safety and continuous improvement.
• Own delivery by creating operating rhythms and measuring velocity, cycle time, and throughput.
• Be the technical conscience, setting engineering standards and reducing technical debt.
• Lead adoption of AI-first tooling within the engineering workflow.
• Develop multidisciplinary engineers by breaking down silos across front end, back end, data, and QA.
• Partner with product and stakeholders to align delivery with business priorities.

Skills

Engineering management

Leading through change

Technical leadership

AI-first development

Delivery metrics

Cross-functional collaboration

Stakeholder communication

Job description

SugarAI is at an inflection point, and it is a genuinely exciting one. Our ambition is to use generative AI to transform how sales professionals work, surfacing years of customer intelligence in seconds and turning unstructured data into sharp, actionable insight. We are rebuilding our engineering organisation to match that ambition, rearchitecting how we build, who we develop, and how we think about engineering in an AI-first world. The engineers here will not be spectators in that moment. They will be at the centre of it.

We are looking for an Engineering Manager who is a genuine thought leader, someone who can see where software engineering is heading, articulate that future with conviction to their team, and set the pace for getting there. The engineers you will lead are talented people who have been through a period of significant change. They are ready for someone who will invest in them, set a clear direction, and give them something worth building towards.

Your mandate is threefold. First, rebuild a team that has been through a difficult transition and restore their confidence, drive, and sense of purpose. Second, champion an AI-first engineering culture where spec-driven development and generative AI tooling become the standard way of working. Third, lead the shift away from siloed specialists towards multidisciplinary engineers who think and contribute across the full stack.

This is not a hands-on engineering role. It is a systems and people building one. You will be defining how this team operates, how it grows, and what it stands for. The decisions you make in the first 6 months will shape the engineering organisation for years to come. If you are energised by rebuilding, clear-eyed about the future of engineering, and ready to set a new standard, we would like to speak with you.

Impact You Will Make in the Role: (Key Responsibilities)

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of software engineers through structured 1:1s, career development planning, performance feedback, and clearly set expectations, owning the full people management cycle including goal-setting, reviews, promotions, and compensation conversations.
• Rebuild team culture from the ground up, establishing psychological safety, accountability, and a genuine appetite for continuous improvement, identifying root causes of underperformance rather than addressing symptoms.
• Own delivery by introducing and maintaining effective operating rhythms, removing blockers systematically, and bringing rigour to planning and sprint health using metrics including velocity, cycle time, throughput, and defect rates.
• Be the technical conscience of the team, setting and enforcing engineering standards across code quality, testing, reliability, and maintainability, reducing technical debt strategically, and providing hands-on technical guidance.
• Lead the adoption of AI-first ways of working, introducing generative AI tooling into the engineering workflow and helping engineers understand and embrace their role as orchestrators in a spec-driven development environment.
• Develop multidisciplinary engineers by actively breaking down silos between front end, back end, data, and QA, building development plans that broaden capability and reduce single points of failure across the team.
• Partner with product and wider stakeholders to align engineering delivery with business priorities, communicating progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly and ensuring engineering has a credible voice in strategic conversations.

What You Will Bring: (Qualifications)

• 5+ years of direct engineering management experience with a track record of developing individuals, managing performance, hiring talent, and building high-functioning teams.
• Proven experience leading a team through a period of significant change, whether through a merger and acquisition, organisational restructure, or a turnaround from low morale and underperformance.
• Strong technical credibility with a background in software development, sufficient to guide architectural decisions, set engineering standards, and earn the genuine respect of the engineers you manage.
• A clear and well-formed point of view on the future of software engineering, including AI-first development, spec-driven workflows, and the evolving role of the engineer.
• Fluency in engineering metrics and delivery operations, with a clear understanding of the relationship between capacity, velocity, and throughput and the ability to use data to drive decisions.
• Strong communication across audiences, able to hold a room of engineers and a room of senior stakeholders with equal confidence, translating between technical complexity and business context.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in post-merger or post-acquisition engineering environments where you have rebuilt culture and operating practice from a difficult starting point.
• A demonstrated track record of moving teams from siloed, specialist working towards cross-functional, multidisciplinary delivery.
• Measurable outcomes in team health, delivery predictability, or engineering effectiveness, with the data to support them.
• Experience introducing generative AI tooling into an engineering team and navigating the human side of that change alongside the technical implementation.