Squad engineering manager - data

Seccl Technology Limited; London, Bath, City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 85,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Data Squad Engineering Manager to lead a high-performing team of data engineers in London. This hybrid role focuses on delivering scalable and secure data capabilities, supporting business insights, and developing a modern data platform. You will guide the team in building robust data pipelines and models while ensuring data quality and governance. With a commitment to fostering professional growth, this role offers the chance to shape the data strategy in a fast-paced, innovative environment. If you're passionate about data and leadership, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

27 days holiday plus bank holidays

Private medical insurance

£750 learning budget

Flexible working hours

Option to work abroad for up to six weeks

Life assurance

Employer pension contribution

MacBook and home office budget

Volunteering days

Health and wellbeing initiatives

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of data engineering lifecycle from ingestion to consumption.
• Hands-on experience with data stack including Redshift, Airflow, and Python.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of data engineers to ensure high performance.
• Collaborate with product managers to align data initiatives with business goals.

Skills

Data Engineering Lifecycle

Mentoring Skills

Communication Skills

Agile Methodologies

Data Governance

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

AWS Redshift

Airflow

DBT

Looker

Docker

Python

MongoDB

Job description

Job title

Hybrid role to be based in our London, Bath or Edinburgh office.

About us

Seccl is the Octopus-owned embedded investment platform that’s on a mission to helping more people to invest – and invest well.

We’re B-Corp certified with an amazing product-market fit, impressive early traction and the potential to transform an outdated industry, for the better. We've been growing fast and will scale even faster over the next few years.

We’re also proud to be part of Octopus, the £multi billion group that's on a mission to breathe new life into broken industries, through companies like Octopus Energy, Octopus Investments and Octopus Money.

Check out the Seccl website for the latest on our products and our mission to shape the future of investments.

The role

The Data Squad engineering manager's purpose is to lead and empower a high-performing team of data engineers to deliver scalable, reliable, and secure data capabilities. This role is central to enabling internal and external data products, supporting business insights, and developing a modern data platform. The role will work closely with Product, Engineering, and Data Operations to align delivery with business outcomes, support the team’s growth, and help shape our overall data strategy.

On a typical day you will…

• Guide and mentor, a team of data engineers, fostering their professional growth and ensuring high performance.Setting clear, measurable goals with regular performance reviews, development plans, and recognition.

• Collaborate with product managers and engineering leaders to define priorities and align data initiatives with business goals.

• Provide technical guidance and architectural oversight across the data platform, including data pipelines, orchestration and modelling.

• Lead the team in building and maintaining robust data pipelines, data models, and infrastructure using tools such as Airflow, AWS Redshift, DBT and Looker.Ensuring the team follows agile methodologies to improve delivery cadence and responsiveness.

• Contribute to hands-on coding, particularly in areas requiring architectural input, prototyping, or critical delivery support.

• Support delivery of both internal analytics capabilities and externally-facing data products.

• Contribute to and influence the development of our modern data platform and data strategy, in collaboration with Engineering Leadership and the Data Ops Manager.

• Ensure data quality, integrity, performance, and security are considered in all data engineering activities, collaborating with other engineering squads to ensure data is accessible, well-governed, and usable across the organisation.

• Oversee the team’s contribution to production readiness, monitoring, incident response, and resolution for data services.

• Track and report on delivery metrics, using data to drive continuous improvement in team performance and technical execution.

This role’s for you if you have...

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

• Strong mentoring skills and ability to foster team growth and development

• Strong understanding of the data engineering lifecycle, from ingestion to consumption

• Hands-on experience with our data stack (Redshift, Airflow, Python, DVT, MongoDB, AWS, Looker, Docker)

• Understanding of data modelling, transformation, and orchestration best practices

• Experience delivering both internal analytics platforms and external data-facing products

• Knowledge of modern software development practices (Agile, Scrum, Kanban)

• Proficiency in CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and cloud data tooling

• Familiarity with data governance, privacy, and security principles

• Experience using metrics and observability tools to monitor data platform health and team performance

• Experience in performance management and setting measurable goals for team members

This role isn’t for you if...

• You rely on a lot of top-down direction.Here, you’ll have a lot of freedom and ownership of your role, and you’ll be expected to shape your own progression

• You’re not comfortable working in a fast-paced environment.Our speed and scalability are what set us apart; you need to be able to act quickly and think on your feet

• You struggle to follow through on ideas.We value people who do what they say they will. If you care about something, you have the freedom here to make it happen

• You don’t like change. You’ll get on great here if you relish the ambiguity of rapid growthand are willing to embrace uncertainty

What’s in it for you…

We offer a generous mix of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including:

A salary between £85,000 and £95,000 – dependant on experience + reviewed annually

27 days holiday + bank holidays (some can be flexible) + day off on your birthday + three days (full time) per year for Dependant leave

Two volunteering days per year

Length of service award – one month paid sabbatical at eight years

6% employer pension contribution, and life assurance

Private medical insurance with AXA Health

Enhanced Parental leave

MacBook and up to £500 home office set up budget

£750 per person learning budget

Option to work abroad for up to six weeks a year

Health and wellbeing initiatives including free therapy via Wellness Cloud, mental health support via Headspace

Strong financial wellbeing focus including access to Octopus Money, Octopus Share Incentive Plan and will writing offering via Octopus Legacy

Perkbox – Flexi-points giving you a range of discounts and perks including free weekly coffee, gym and retail discounts

Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work and Octopus Electric Vehicle Leasing

Our culture

We're proud to put people first, creating a culture where we truly listen to what matters most to them. Our transparent and inclusive environment encourages diversity of thought, challenge and experimentation.

Check out our Glassdoor page for the latest reviews or our LinkedIn for company updates and insights from the team.

Interview process

Interviewing is a two-way thing, and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you. Our interviews are conversational, so come with questions and be curious. In general, you can expect the interview process to look a bit like this:

• First stage – 45 mins competencies-based interview

• Second stage – one-hour technical interview or assessment

• Final stage – 45 mins bar-raiser culture-based interview

We’ll only close this role once we have enough applications for the next stage. Please submit your application as soon as possible to make sure you don’t miss out and you should expect to hear back from us within one to two weeks of applying.

Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive company of awesome people, with unique skills, passions and experiences. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, or veteran, neurodiversity or disability status.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t tick every box. We’d love to hear from you!