Engineering Manager

# Engineering Manager

Location: Hybrid (Home and Westminster London office) Tenure: Permanent, Full-time Salary: £75,000 to £85,000 Closing Date: Rolling recruitment

## About the Role

We are growing our technology team and looking for an Engineering Manager with a shared belief in the power of data and technology to change lives. As a team, we want to continue building a solid engineering culture so that we can move the company and mission forward and grow professionally and personally.

You will lead a team of engineers, balancing people management with delivery oversight. You will be responsible for the performance, growth, and wellbeing of your direct reports. Youll work closely with Product and other stakeholders to ensure your team delivers high-quality work aligned with business priorities, setting clear expectations, removing blockers, and fostering a culture of psychological safety, continuous improvement, and accountability.

A core part of this role is helping our teams excel at agile delivery. We run both Scrum and Kanban across different teams, and you will work across them-coaching, facilitating, and continuously improving how we plan, deliver, and learn. Youll need to be fluent in both methodologies and understand when and why each is the right fit.

You will remain technically credible and able to engage meaningfully in architectural and technical discussions, though your primary focus is on enabling others to do their best work.

This is a scale-up environment with plenty of opportunity to take responsibility and lead on improving our ways of working alongside new development.

## Key Responsibilities

### Agile Delivery and Process Ownership

• Own and evolve agile practices across engineering teams, working fluently with both Scrum and Kanban depending on team context and the nature of the work.
• Facilitate sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives, and stand-ups for Scrum teams; ensure Kanban teams have well-maintained boards, clear WIP limits, and effective flow metrics.
• Coach teams on when and how to adapt their process-recognising that different work products (features vs. BAU, support vs. data delivery) benefit from different approaches.
• Use delivery metrics (cycle time, throughput, velocity, lead time) to identify bottlenecks, drive improvements, and provide visibility to stakeholders-without reducing agile to a numbers game.
• Champion continuous improvement through well-facilitated retrospectives and follow-through on action items.
• Ensure cross-team alignment on cadences, dependencies, and shared ceremonies where needed.

### People Leadership and Development

• Run effective 1:1s, provide timely and constructive feedback, and support each team members development through clear goals and regular career conversations.
• Manage performance fairly, addressing issues early and with care.
• Build trust within your team and create an environment where people feel safe to take risks, ask for help, and challenge ideas.
• Grow junior team members through mentoring, pairing, code review, and leading by example, using our engineering career pathways framework to support progression.
• Actively support hiring-contributing to job descriptions, interviews, and onboarding.

### Delivery and Execution

• Ensure your team delivers reliably and sustainably, working with Product to prioritise work, manage dependencies, and set realistic expectations.
• Protect the team from unnecessary disruption while keeping them connected to business context.
• Track progress, identify risks early, and intervene when delivery is at risk-without micromanaging.
• Balance feature delivery with technical health, ensuring time is allocated for maintenance, refactoring, and technical debt reduction.

### Technical Engagement

• Remain technically credible-you dont need to be the strongest individual contributor, but you should participate meaningfully in design discussions, code review conversations, and architectural decisions.
• Identify technical risk, ask good questions, and support sound decision-making.
• Ensure technical standards are maintained and that the team invests appropriately in code quality, testing, and documentation.
• Work as a hands-on engineer where needed (front-end, back-end, CI/CD, IaC, and security).
• Ensure the security of data entrusted to the organisation, minimising risk of breach, data loss, or downtime.

### Stakeholder and Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Build strong working relationships with Product, Design, Data, Policy, and Client Services teams.
• Communicate complex technical concepts to all audiences within the organisation.
• Represent your teams capacity constraints and progress clearly.
• Escalate risks and blockers appropriately.
• Contribute to cross-team planning and coordination, ensuring your teams work aligns with broader engineering and organisational goals.
• Manage external technical relationships with pentesters, infrastructure specialists, accessibility testers, and contractors.
• Shape the companys thinking on software technology architecture and how to build systems that work for us, our customers, and our users over the long run.

## The Ideal Candidate

### Essential Skills

• Demonstrable experience as an Engineering Manager or Senior Tech Lead managing a team.
• Deep practical experience with both Scrum and Kanban-real-world facilitation and continuous improvement of agile teams is preferred over certification.
• Track record of improving team delivery through process changes, removing impediments, and coaching engineers on agile practices.
• Experience working across teams that use different agile methodologies and the judgement to understand which approach fits which context.
• Strong people management skills-performance management, career development, constructive feedback, and difficult conversations handled with care.
• Hands-on software engineering experience across the full stack; you dont need to code daily, but you must be technically credible enough to engage in design discussions, identify technical risk, and maintain the teams trust.
• Experience with CI/CD, automated testing, and modern development workflows.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management-you can represent your team clearly, influence decisions through well-reasoned arguments, and communicate complex ideas simply.
• Comfort with ambiguity and change-you help others navigate pressure and keep the team focused.

### Desirable

• Experience in a scale-up or growing engineering organisation.
• Familiarity with our tech stack: TypeScript, Node.js, Angular, React, AWS, Lambda, Fargate, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, Python.
• Experience with Jira for sprint/Kanban board management and roadmap planning.
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), or Kanban Management Professional (KMP)-useful but not required.
• Experience working in GovTech, public sector, or mission-driven organisations.
• Understanding of data engineering workflows and cross-discipline collaboration.

## Technical Environment

• Development: JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js, Angular, transitioning to React.
• Testing: Mocha, Chai, Playwright.
• Infrastructure: AWS, S3, CloudFront, Lambda, Fargate, DynamoDB, RDS, MySQL.
• Data Analysis: Node.js, AWS, RDS, PostgreSQL, Fargate, Lambda, S3, Python, Stata, Excel, Tableau.
• Practices: GitHub, CI/CD via GitHub Actions with code review and automated quality checks, AWS CDK.
• Project Management: Jira for epics, tickets, roadmaps with quarterly roadmap review.

Interest and aptitude for ongoing learning is more important than what you know today.

## About Policy in Practice

Policy in Practice believes data and technology have the ability to empower people and change lives. Our goal is to be the single point of access for all people on means-tested benefits and enable effective public services through citizen-centred services. We aim to reach as many households as possible across the UK. We will do this via growth of existing products in public and private sector organisations and through expansion into new markets.

Policy in Practice is at a pivotal point as we continue to move from start-up to scale-up. We have invested in our capability, and development has moved from ideas to prototypes and, in some cases, to production.

### Vision We believe data and technology have the ability to empower people and change lives.

### Mission Empower people via proactive, integrated support. We will help more people to live better lives using our expertise in social policy, data, and technology. We are transforming the way society supports low-income families through citizen-centred approaches. We focus on improving how all policy areas, sectors, and journeys combined can have an impact on people and their outcomes.

### Values

• Purposeful and passionate: We push for opportunities to improve not just for our clients or for ourselves, but also for the people who need our help. We take responsibility. Details matter. We have a genuine passion to help people with a willingness to take action.
• Insightful and impactful: We go beyond straightforward analysis to get to the So What, driving our policy insight and services to deliver impact. We think deeply and communicate simply in a way that helps people make the right decisions.
• Respectful and supportive: We are willing to discuss and debate openly, listening to both sides and relying on evidence and strong relationships to reach shared positions. We have each others back.

### Why Work Here Working at Policy in Practice is not just about maximising our own profit and product performance. It is also about what is right for people in the UK and the system supporting them. We are a team of professionals with extensive knowledge of the welfare system who are passionate about making social policy work. We love what we do, have fun, and while we recognise the importance and impact of our work, we take life-work balance seriously.

• Working in a thought-leading organisation where you can empower people and change lives.
• Flexible working arrangements with hybrid and remote working available.
• Opportunities for quick career progression.

### What Colleagues Say > "Everyone is lovely and we do such impactful work. There is a very caring employee culture and a drive to share expertise." > > "I appreciate how our work helps shape policies and the supportive team environment here encourages everyone to grow. Flexible working options make it easier to balance life and work and our inclusive culture makes this a welcoming place to be." > > "The work is extremely meaningful and translates directly into tangible benefits."

## How to Apply

Please send your CV with a cover letter that clearly outlines your suitability and your interest in the post to jobspolicyinpractice.co.uk as soon as possible.