Engineering Manager

The Data Automation Tribe accelerates trusted, scalable automation for our customers—delivering high‑quality data processing, connectors, and intelligent workflows through empowered, self‑organising teams focused on continuous improvement and real customer outcomes. The tribe is transitioning to operate with an AI-first PDLC. AI agents are a digital delivery partner across engineering and delivery management, accelerating how we design, build, test, document, plan, forecast, and report. Humans provide intent, constraints, verification, and accountability.

As an Engineering Manager at Xceptor, you lead the tribe’s delivery outcomes through people leadership, delivery leadership, and systems leadership. You build and run a high-performing team that ships production-grade software at high pace in a regulated environment, and you develop engineers into AI-first engineers.

This is an AI-first management role. You run planning, forecasting, delivery tracking, and reporting using AI-assisted workflows, automation, and data-driven insight to reduce manual overhead and increase clarity, tempo, and predictability.

We’re building the next-gen platform differently. AI-first delivery is the normal way of working across both engineering outputs and delivery management. This role exists to build a team and operating rhythm where AI-first delivery is consistent, measurable, and sustainable, and where engineers grow rapidly in this new world.

• Coach and develop engineers through Xceptor’s framework, with explicit growth in AI-first behaviours (delegation to agents, verification discipline, review quality, safe delivery).
• Create a high-performance, psychologically safe environment with clear expectations, fast feedback, and strong accountability.
• Run effective performance management (clear goals, regular check-ins, timely recognition, and course correction).
• Build career pathways by increasing scope, autonomy, and impact, not just code output.
• Set responsible AI usage standards for the team (when to use it, how to validate outputs, and what cannot be outsourced).

Delivery Leadership (Outcome, pace, predictability):

• Own delivery execution and predictability for the tribe (planning, sequencing, tracking, stakeholder communication).
• Ensure work is broken into small increments with clear acceptance criteria and verification, enabling frequent releases and fast feedback.
• Drive a healthy delivery rhythm by improving flow, prioritisation, and removing bottlenecks.
• Own risk and dependency management, surfacing issues early and keeping stakeholders aligned with reality.
• Balance new delivery with operational responsibility (support, bugs, reliability work) without losing momentum.

AI-First Delivery Management (How you run the engine):

• Run planning and forecasting using AI-assisted workflows (capacity planning, scenario planning, delivery plan drafts, risk tracking) with human review and accountability.
• Use AI to accelerate reporting and decision-making by synthesising delivery signals, surfacing trends, and drafting concise stakeholder updates without spin.
• Automate management overhead wherever possible (status reporting, release notes drafting, dependency tracking, action follow-ups).
• Build a measurable improvement loop: when delivery or quality issues occur, improve the system (templates, gates, workflows), not just the team’s effort.

• Partner with the Principal Engineer and QA Lead to ensure output meets a production-grade bar (security, performance, observability, auditability, maintainability).
• Ensure the team follows golden paths and automated gates; deviations are explicit, justified, and visible.
• Drive continuous improvement in engineering practices (CI/CD, test strategy, review discipline, incident learnings, operational readiness).
• Ensure delivery is safe and auditable in regulated environments (traceability, approvals where required, operational controls).

• Partner with Product and UX to translate outcomes into shippable increments, align trade-offs, and keep focus on customer value.
• Facilitate clear communication across the tribe and with stakeholders: honest status, decisive decisions, early escalation when needed.
• Resolve conflicts and ambiguity early; keep the team aligned on priorities and ways of working.
• Contribute to a broader culture of high standards, high tempo, and pragmatic innovation across engineering.

• Strong people leadership and coaching; proven ability to build and sustain high-performing teams.
• Creates clarity, pace, and accountability without micromanagement.
• Strong organisation across multiple priorities; comfortable with hard conversations early and constructively.

• Strong grasp of flow and delivery management (work breakdown, dependencies, forecasting, predictable communication).
• Experience running teams with production responsibility (support, incidents, reliability work, continuous improvement).
• Data-driven and outcome-focused; uses metrics to diagnose and improve, not to create bureaucracy.

• Uses AI as a routine partner for management work (planning drafts, capacity scenarios, risk surfacing, stakeholder updates, performance insights) with sound judgement and confidentiality.
• Builds lightweight AI-enabled workflows that reduce manual overhead and increase transparency and speed.
• Understands AI risks in management contexts (privacy, bias, confidentiality) and applies sensible controls.

• Strong understanding of modern software delivery and engineering quality; can engage credibly on trade-offs, delivery risk, and operational readiness without being the primary designer/coder.
• Understands cloud and on-prem delivery constraints and the expectations of regulated customers.

• Clear communicator with strong stakeholder management and presentation skills.
• Customer-centric and commercially aware; focuses the team on value and outcomes.
• Pragmatic change leader; drives adoption of new practices with empathy and clarity.

• Proven experience as an Engineering Manager / Software Development Manager (typically 4+ years, depending on framework).
• Experience leading teams delivering production-grade software in regulated or mission-critical environments (financial services preferred).
• Degree in a STEM discipline or equivalent experience.

Measured on outcomes and how they’re achieved: faster delivery, production-grade quality, controlled change, enabled by an AI-first operating model.

• Flow: DORA (lead time, deploy frequency, change failure rate, MTTR)
• Quality: Quality Health Indicator (defect escape, time to resolve, severity trend, etc)
• DX: Developer Experience Score (shipping friction, golden path usability)
• AI leverage: throughput up without rework/escapes; high adoption of AI workflow & golden paths (engineering and delivery management)
• Assurance: automated gates coverage (tests/security/observability/performance) and review effectiveness (low rollback/rework)
• Production & controls: SLO attainment, incident/severity trend, and audit-ready traceability of changes/approvals
• Behaviours: AI-first by default (uses AI for planning/reporting/insights responsibly); builds AI-first engineers; drives verification discipline; enables delivery through systems not heroics; creates fast learning loops; maintains control-aware decisions

• Collaboration: Encourage teamwork and knowledge sharing.
• Innovation: Support the exploration of new ideas and technologies.
• Integrity: Maintain transparency and ethical behavior in all decisions.
• Accountability: Take ownership of responsibilities and results.
• Respect: Value diverse perspectives and contributions.
• Continuous Improvement: Strive for excellence in processes and outcomes.
• Customer Focus: Prioritize solutions that meet or exceed customer expectations.

We believe great ideas come from everywhere — and that the best teams are made up of people with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. At Xceptor, we’re committed to building a workplace where everyone feels welcome, valued, and empowered to be themselves.

We know that not everyone ticks every single box in a job description — and that’s okay. If you’re excited about this role and think you could make a difference, we’d love to hear from you. Your unique skills and experiences might be just what we need, even if you don’t meet every requirement.

We celebrate diversity and are dedicated to creating an inclusive environment for all employees — regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or background.

#LI-GL1 #LI-Hybrid