Engineering Manager

lawvu-careers; New Zealand; Hybrid; NZD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Monthly wellness allowance

Extended paid parental leave

Extra paid day off on birthday

Share options

Home office allowance

Job summary

LawVu is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead delivery squads, own the SDLC, and drive high-quality software for our AI-native platform used by in-house legal teams globally.

You will mentor engineering and QA talent, collaborate with Product and Design, and remove blockers to ensure predictable delivery and value realization for LawVu customers worldwide.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience leading and developing teams.
• 8+ years of experience designing, building and shipping full stack applications.

Responsibilities

• Lead delivery squads with a shared roadmap and cross-team dependencies.
• Own the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and ensure high-quality, well-tested software.
• Coach and mentor engineers, partnering with Product, Design, and Tech Leads.

Skills

Team leadership

Coaching

Agile practices

Stakeholder management

AI adoption

Software engineering

Education

B.S. in Computer Science

Tools

GitHub Copilot

Job description

LawVuis the AI-native operating system for in-house legal - the foundational layer that powers the entire legal function. Our intelligent platform connects legal intake, matters, contracts, spend, and reporting in one connected workspace, enabling legal teams to work smarter, move faster, and deliver measurable business value.

Trusted by leading organizations including Discord, Employment Hero, Etsy, and many more,LawVuis helping legal teams transform from reactive service providers into strategic business partners.

Founded in New Zealand,LawVuis a fast-growing global software company with customers and employees across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Backed by leading venture capital firms, including Insight Partners andAirtreeVentures,we'recreating a new category ofLegalOSsoftware purpose-built for modern in-house legal teams.

The Engineering Manager is a squad leader, people leader, and engineering steward responsible for managing delivery squads —with a shared roadmap, vision, and cross-team dependencies. In this role, you will own the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), build high-performing teams through active coaching and mentorship, and partner closely with Product, Design, and Technical Leads to deliver high-quality software that drives value for LawVu customers globally.

You lead results-driven delivery squads that operate with clear goals and ownership, fostering a high-trust environment where "blameless" problem-solving is the norm.

In this role,you’llhelp accelerate legal processes, drive creativity, and bring fresh, solutions to an industry ready for change. This is a chance to work on thecutting edgeof legal tech, making a real impact on the future of legal ops and with an awesome team of humans!

What you will be doing:

This is a leadership position, and the skills you bring cross a variety of different disciplines, and you will need to switch and juggle between them all.

Team Leadership

• Build and grow the squads: hire, onboard, and develop strong engineering and QA talent, with clear performance goals, regular 1:1s, and real-time coaching that translates into visible career growth.

• Set the culture: foster ownership, accountability, psychological safety, and strong communication, so the squad continuously improves on its own initiative.

• Handle HR matters and support resource/staffing planning across the squads and functions.

• Develop communication skills across the team.

Software Development & Delivery Execution

• Delivery is constant: uphold the SDLC, architectural best practices, and the Definition of Done, partnering with Product, Design, and Technical Leads so every sprint ships high-quality, well-tested work.

• Keep the squad unblocked: remove technical and non-technical impediments, and own change management and stakeholder communication during incidents, supporting the Tech Lead, who leads the technical response.

• Hit the bar: deliver against clear success criteria, quality, release frequency, security compliance, and defect rates.

• Support the Technical Lead with guidance on architecture and solution designs aligned to the target architecture.

• There’s no expectation for hands on coding, can pitch in, when possible, especially with the advancements with AI.

Operational Excellence

• Keep leadership informed: flag material estimates or scope changes early, and maintain accurate, visible work status across project tools.

• Manage stakeholders with confidence: build trusted relationships across Product, Design, and cross-functional partners, communicating progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly so stakeholders stay aligned and confident in the squad's delivery.

• Strengthen how the team operates: surface risks, dependencies, and process gaps, and embed solid operational standards, runbooks, deployment checklists, incident management, and out-of-office coverage.

Roadmap & Strategic Planning

• Shape technical direction: partner with Technical Leads, Architecture, and fellow Engineering Managers to prioritise technical investment and keep delivery efficient across squads.

Agile Leadership

• Run a well-oiled squad: This means effective estimation, predictable forecasting, and delivery dates with confidence. Programmatic continual improvement with a reduced time to value.

• Balance capacity: keep work-type allocation (features, support, tech debt) tracked and balanced, coaching the team toward continuous improvement.

Tech Debt & Quality

• Resolve what matters most: prioritise and drive down tech debt, starting with Sev1 root causes, critical/high security issues, and high-volume support pain points, while growing automated QA coverage as a core team metric.

AI & Continuous Learning

• Champion AI adoption & impact: embed AI-native tools like GitHub Copilot into daily workflows, track adoption as a team metric, and ensure the team invests regular time in training across AI, security, Agile, and testing.

What we need from you:

• 3+ years of experience of leading and developing teams.

• 8+ years of experience designing, building and shipping full stack applications; comfortable engaging across the UI, API and data layers including cloud infrastructure, CI/CD Pipelines, Object Oriented design, automated testing.

• B.S. or equivalent in Computer Science or equivalent skills and knowledge.

• Hands-on experience writing, reviewing, and debugging production code, with the technical credibility to guide engineering decisions.

• Experience leading teams in the adoption of AI-native engineering workflows to improve developer productivity and quality.

• Extensive professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of technical maturity and delivering complex systems.

• Working knowledge of Agile practices: user story decomposition, estimation, sprint planning, Kanban.

• Employee management skills: coaching, performance assessment, delegation and communication.

• Strong experience leading, coaching, and performance-managing engineers, including building and improving team capability over time.

• Ability to make mature, objective technical decisions grounded in principles and data.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to communicate across technical and business audiences.

• Proven stakeholder management skills, building trust with Product, Design, and business stakeholders, and navigating competing priorities with confidence.

What sets us apart:

• Monthly wellness allowance to use on whatever enables you to bring your whole self to work – gym membership, massage,childcare…the list goes on!

• Healthinsurance

• Extended paid parental leave

• Extra paid day off on your birthday

• Share options so you can have a piece of the pie

• Home office allowance set up for remote employees

Why LawVu?

At LawVu we support many types of flexible working arrangements that allow you to balance your work, your life and your passions. We offer the opportunity to get onboard a growth company early and the opportunity to participate in LawVu’s success through our incentive scheme. LawVu has rapidly expanding offices and our work environment encourages continuous improvement and future career development.

Our collaborative and inclusive culture is one we’re immensely proud of. We know that a diverse workforce is a strength that enables us to better understand and serve customers and innovate successfully. From the moment you join, you’ll feel welcome and supported to do the best work of your life.

Our team is only as strong as the culture it is built upon. Our core values are:

• Inspire and Delight: We go the extra mile to create experiences that inspire and delight our customers.

• Move Swiftly: We get things done quickly and efficiently.

• Dig Deeper: No challenge is too big. We embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, and share knowledge.

• Take Ownership: We take responsibility for our actions and their impact on the business.

• Back Yourself. Back Others: We support and respect each other, buildinga high levelof trust.

• Bring Your Woo: We create a safe environment that fosters bringing your whole self to work.

We are constantly working towards making LawVu one of the best places to work, for everyone. LawVu is committed to providing equality of opportunity, valuing diversity and promoting a culture of inclusion. We will ensure this by fostering a workplace where people feel safe to be themselves, are able to do the best work of their lives and fulfil their potential. We believe by bringing together our diversity of thoughts and backgrounds, we will develop a world class product for the equally diverse customers we serve.

We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion. If you would like to apply and need reasonable adjustments or would like to note which pronouns you use at any point in the application or interview process, please let us know.

What To Expect from the Recruitment Process:

The aim is to make the recruitment process as efficient as possible, keeping you informed every step of the way.

• After candidate screening, next step will be an in-person / remote coffee chat with someone from our leadership team to discuss the role expectations in detail.

• Following the coffee chat, we will invite you back for case study presentation where we will give you the opportunity to showcase your leadership skills.

• Finally, if we are both aligned, we wrap up the process with salary discussions and present you with an offer of employment.