Engineering Manager - 12 month FTC

This is a Fixed Term Opportunity for 12 months covering parental leave.

The Engineering Manager will lead and nurture a squad of 6-8 engineers. You'll be accountable for guiding your team through the entire lifecycle of building and maintaining our systems and products.

As an experienced technical leader, you'll ensure your squad possesses the necessary technical depth and skills to consistently deliver high-quality solutions. This involves hands-on engagement in key client projects, where you'll lead by example and meticulously assess the technical quality of the team's output.

A core aspect of this role is fostering a thriving team environment. You'll cultivate a culture of open feedback, providing actionable insights to empower team members in their continuous learning, growth, and development. Your leadership will create a safe space where engineers feel supported, comfortable admitting mistakes, and confident in learning from every experience.

Responsibilities

Develop strong client relationships as the primary technical contact for new and existing clients

• You are the primary technical contact for a subset of your team’s clients, you develop their technical vision, and work with your team to develop solutions.

• You provide senior oversight and direction to the technical approach on all projects within your squad, either directly or by working with the project lead developers. You champion our agile delivery model and provide support to teams to ensure that projects deliver on time and on budget without compromising quality.

• You work in partnership with the sector teams to identify opportunities to work with new and existing clients to provide consultancy services, enhancing the agency's positioning as a strategic partner.

• You advise your clients on overall technical strategy based on experience, industry trends and best practice, with the ability to challenge client thinking where appropriate.

• You work confidently with senior client stakeholders, acting as a trusted advisor and expert.

• You work closely with the engineering team to produce technical solutions for clients.
  
  

You manage the technical and support relationships with clients in your team 

• You ensure your clients are supported with the appropriate team members.

• You ensure there is redundancy in your support teams to allow for holiday or any out of hours exceptions are covered.

• You ensure the smooth operation of any support boards helping to unblock technical team members and resolve issues.

• You escalate high priority issues, with the wider team to ensure that they are resolved in a timely manner.
  
  

You lead the delivery of high quality software solutions on time and to budget

• You ensure your project team members are fully engaged and participating in all aspects of the project and its administration during build phase

• You ensure all ceremonies of your Agile project are undertaken at the right time with the right people always present, including: standups, backlog refinement, sprint planning, code reviews and retrospectives.

• You ensure your team delivers the work they have committed to for the agreed deadline

• You ensure your team is delivering work to meet or exceed the client expectations of quality

• You ensure your team is delivering work that meets the tech studio’s expectations of quality and that adhere to our standards

• You ensure your team is collaborating well at all times, problems are discussed early and raised to the delivery team and client as soon as possible
  
  

You develop and lead an effective squad of between 6 and 8 software engineers, managing a subset of the technical studio

• You will build and maintain a strong, supportive squad of engineers. 

• You coach, mentor, train and inspire members of the technology team and help them develop their skills.

• You successfully onboard new technical team members so they are effective in their roles.

• You take accountability for the quality of delivery to all the clients and work with your squad and wider delivery team to ensure all clients have the development support they need.

• You ensure that your squad is well utilised and meeting their billable targets.

• You join weekly meetings with the engineering director to discuss squad capacity, utilisation and to escalate any people or project concerns

• You take accountability for the effectiveness of any contractors assigned to your squad.

• You provide professional development coaching to your reports and help them to develop and action a professional development plan.

• You understand and promote our company policies. You ensure all your direct reports are completing their administrative responsibilities within the squad (e.g. IT assessment is up-to-date) and holiday requests are booked sufficiently in advance and fully considered before approval.

• You ensure your reports are fulfilling their job role accountabilities to the best of their abilities and provide the appropriate feedback and encourage appropriate reflections to encourage and support any change necessary. 

• You accurately assess performance for the purposes of impact scoring.

• You hold regular 1:1 meetings and keep good notes and actions.
  
  

You ensure successful technical project delivery by leading technical oversight, including risk mitigation, issue identification and resolution for all client work assigned to your Engineering squad

• You ensure all projects are properly supervised and scrutinised to ensure effective technical delivery using agreed processes

• You identify issues and root causes that are affecting technical delivery on projects in your team.

• You intervene and facilitate or direct actions on projects to address technical issues, working closely with the technical and delivery leads. Escalating issues to the engineering director when required.

• You ensure your team has adequate technical delivery risk awareness and mitigation is in place on all projects.

• You proactively change any aspect of our technical approaches to ensure that we remain successful in the future as technologies and practices change.

• You raise significant technical project concerns to the engineering and/or technical directors

Professional knowledge and experience

• Proven track record of hands-on leadership with agile, cross-functional engineering teams, guiding them through the full development lifecycle.

• Demonstrated experience in client-facing technical leadership, adept at managing technical delivery, effectively mentoring and developing engineers, and proactively mitigating project risks.

• Commitment to continuous improvement, actively staying abreast of industry trends and best practices in front-end development and CMS technologies to continuously enhance technical approaches and elevate team capabilities.

• Exceptional proficiency in software architecture and development, with a particular emphasis on CMS architectures and CMS platform integrations.

Technical skills

• You’re an experienced Fullstack developer with exceptional proficiency in PHP-based CMSes, such as Drupal, and Frontend technologies, including React/Next.js, GraphQL and Storybook

• You are comfortable working with both monolithic and decoupled architectures

• You are familiar with the component based approach to build and deliver projects

• You apply strong knowledge of software architecture and design patterns to inform technical decisions, ensuring the delivery of resilient and maintainable systems.

• You lead and champion agile development practices, ensuring your team leverages tools like Jira and Confluence to optimize workflows and collaboration.

• Fostering a culture of quality through robust code review processes and enforcing high coding standards across the team.

• Providing strategic guidance in troubleshooting complex technical issues, effectively navigating challenges that span both front-end and back-end systems.

• Ensuring the team's proficiency in version control systems, especially Git, to maintain code integrity and collaborative development.

Behaviours

• You have mastered your craft, know a wide range of methodologies and you are developing new tools and standards for your practice. 

• You have a good understanding of other practice areas and take a holistic view in your approach.

• You lead your squad to positive, high quality outcomes, informing  appropriate decisions to meet budget, deadlines and stakeholder requirements.

• Your squad and the business recognise your highly impactful contributions.

• You handle changes to scope, business priorities or urgency with expertise.  You make suggestions or offer solutions/proposals for appropriate adaptations.

• You are skilled to competently work on complex problems under pressure (i.e. resolving a complex production issue at speed, or leading the resolution of critical or major incidents)

• You contribute to internal and/or external forums, such as communities of practice. You take part in initiatives to improve practices of your discipline or within the wider business.

• Onboarding or mentoring of your squad to higher performance and people development or progression.

• You adopt a commercial mindset that leads to new opportunities for business growth or operational improvements.

• You contribute to the growth and development of other squad members, through championing, mentoring and providing constructive, candid feedback.

• You give expert and strategic feedback on projects relevant to your discipline/domain which leads to better outcomes.

• You consistently meet your personal targets, where relevant to your role

• You support our inclusive environment and ESG commitments. 

• Embodies Manifesto’s values, championing purpose-driven work and fostering a positive team culture

manifesto

We are the digital experience agency for changemakers. We are committed to delivering purposeful and positive  impact for people, planet and society, in restless pursuit of a better world.

We take pride in creating award-winning digital experiences, products and services that are measurably ethical,  inclusive, accessible, sustainable and joyful. 

Our changemaker clients include UNICEF UK, Breast Cancer Now, The Trussell Trust, Woodgreen, The Royal Academy of Arts, Zoological Society London, Historic Environment Scotland and Fauna & Flora.

Part of the TPXimpact group - a Certified B Corporation™, we are a team of 130 digital product leaders, creative designers, user experience designers, engagement specialists, software engineers and experience strategists.

TPXimpact

TPXimpact is a digital transformation company, and Certified B Corporation™, on a mission to build a future where people, places and the planet are supported to thrive. Combining vast expertise in human-centred design, data, experience and technology, we help the public, private and third sectors with their digital transformation journey, delivering high quality solutions that improve services, experiences and outcomes. We’re passionate people who work in close collaboration with our clients to create sustainable solutions ready for an ever-evolving world.