Software Engineering Manager

Atom bank plc; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

A forward-thinking digital bank in the UK is seeking a Backend Engineering Manager to lead their Backend Engineering Practice. This role focuses on coaching and performance enhancement in a high-tech environment. You will guide engineering teams to ensure technical excellence while fostering a high-performance culture. The position comes with a competitive salary and a range of employee benefits, including a flexible working regime.

Benefits

Flexible hybrid working

Salary up to £100k

Discretionary annual cash bonus up to 15%

4-day work week

Generous pension scheme

22.5 days annual leave plus public holidays

Private Medical Insurance for family

Health Cash Plan, Life Insurance & Critical illness cover

Qualifications

• Significant experience with backend technologies and best practices in API, data, and microservices development.
• Excellent brokering and collaboration skills with the ability to achieve consensus.
• Proven ability to maintain high technical standards through architecture reviews and testing.
• Broad understanding of full-stack development in Agile/DevOps.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and advocate for the Backend Engineering team.
• Manage team performance and drive a high-performance culture.
• Support the Principal Engineering community in technical roadmap execution.
• Collaborate across departments to optimize the software development lifecycle.

Skills

Backend technologies

API development

Collaboration skills

Agile/DevOps understanding

Job description

We are looking for a Backend Engineering Manager to lead our entire Backend Engineering Practice. This is a people enabler role, focused on coaching, mentorship, and cultivating a high-performance culture. While you won't be hands‑on with the code, you must be technically credible to inspire and guide our engineers. You will be responsible for getting the absolute best out of our engineering function, driving excellence across our Microservices, Data, Core Banking, and Integration Guilds.

Responsibilities

• Engineering Leadership & Coaching: Lead, coach, and advocate for the Backend Engineering team, serving as a people enabler who unblocks them to increase engagement and productivity.
• Performance & Culture: Manage the overall performance of the team and drive a high‑performance culture with a focus on performance, scalability, privacy, and security. You must be comfortable having difficult conversations to maintain standards.
• Capability Development: Manage continued capability development, ensuring delivery teams possess the right engineering skills to enable elite delivery. You'll evangelise modern practices like TDD, BDD, and CI/CD.
• Technical Roadmaps & Consistency: Support the Principal Engineering community in devising and executing technical roadmaps across value streams, driving cross‑value‑stream consistency where beneficial.
• Optimising the SDLC: Collaborate across departments (Architecture, Engineering & Delivery) to optimise the software development lifecycle for safety and flow. This includes owning solutions for developer onboarding and generating process and tooling improvements to keep engineers productive.

Qualifications

• Significant experience working with backend technologies and a working knowledge of best practices in API, data, and microservices development. While not a hands‑on coding role, you must be technically credible.
• Excellent brokering and collaboration skills, with a proven ability to regularly achieve consensus amongst departments.
• Proven ability to institute processes like architecture reviews and testing culture to ensure high technical standards are adhered to.
• A broad understanding of full‑stack development in an Agile/DevOps environment.

We're not like the rest. We're true innovators, and we're redefining what a bank should be. Ours is a bank for today and the future, a mobile‑first bank. Forget the stuffy branches, with Atom you can bank whenever, wherever, faster, and simpler.

Could you be the next innovator to join us? What will your typical day look like? Different that's for sure. Are you a passionate people leader with deep technical credibility, ready to maximise the potential of a world‑class engineering team? Atom is the UK's first app‑based bank, known for its cutting‑edge technology stack and commitment to value. Technology is at the core of our business, and we operate in long‑lived, value‑stream aligned teams that deliver change safely and at pace.

What you'll get from us

• Flexible hybrid working.
• Salary up to £100k.
• Discretionary annual cash bonus up to 15% of salary (based on performance).
• 4‑day work week.
• Incredibly generous company pension scheme (maximum of 13% of Atom input – candidate can put in more).
• 22.5 days annual leave plus public holidays.
• Private Medical Insurance for you and your full family.
• Health Cash Plan, Life Insurance & Critical illness cover.