Engineering ManagerVivacity Labs

• Team management (eg strategy & roadmap input, sprint ceremonies, reporting, OKRs, owning workstreams, project managing) - 45%
• Line management (pastoral, 1-1s, coaching, reviews etc) - 10%
• Tech management (design, architecting, problem solving) - 30%
• Direct technical contribution (implementing, reviewing, etc) - 15%

Your day-to-day work will include several key components:

• Collaborating with leadership to develop and implement team vision and strategies
• Manage timelines, stakeholder expectations, and team alignment, ensuring clear technical plans and communication, whilst ensuring focus on customer outcomes
• Balancing innovation, rapid prototyping, feature delivery, and scalability improvements, while effectively managing both engineers and researchers


As an experienced builder of high-profile teams:
• Building a high performance team culture which enshrines Vivacity’s values and empowers your team to bring their full self and energy to their work
• Applying your experience as well as performance metrics to prioritise and implement process and tooling improvements
• Proactively address bottlenecks and empower team members, while maintaining accountability through performance monitoring and mitigation strategies


As an experienced line manager
• Providing a constant source of energy for the team, emphasising each person’s impact, whilst proactively ensuring psychological safety in the team
• Using a coaching management style to help your team members continuously grow in their roles, proactively looking for opportunities for them to develop their skills
• Representing your team within the business and championing their voice, as well as inputting on department initiatives such as career pathways

In your first 90 days in the role, your tasks will include:

• Get up to speed on the business context for your team and products
• Update your team’s roadmap to cover the next 3-6 months based on commercial priorities and your experience
• Develop Objectives and Key Results, aligned with this roadmap
• Work closely with product to develop release plans for the items on your roadmap, including quality assurance testing steps
• Leading refinement meetings: guiding the scoping and design of technical work items from a lens of commercial focus and urgency
• Working closely with workstream owners to manage the day to day of product delivery, for example through critical path planning, stakeholder updates, and technical alignment alongside specialists
• Integrating deeply into your team’s day-to-day and contributing positively to team culture through thoughtful and frequent communication
• Build close line manager relationships with your reports through regular 1-1s, office attendance and ad-hoc meetings
• Work with leadership to input on a career framework being developed
• Work with your reports to develop personal development plans, aligned with this framework
• Use your experience and business context to proactively shape the way the team operates
• Unblocking team members through technical input and contributing towards key tasks where time permits

About you

• Demonstrated leadership in managing high-performing technical teams, solving customer problems efficiently with creativity and drive
• Significant technical expertise in relevant areas (eg golang/python, kubernetes, terraform, postgresql, computer vision, AI/ML)
• Experience within an innovative deep tech startup or scaleup; you feel at home with the complex and competing priorities of R&D work towards new technical products
• A track record of setting successful technical visions and roadmaps
• Proven experience of nurturing and developing team members, whilst representing their voice to the company
• The ability to move seamlessly from team road mapping to detailed task management and unblocking team members on technical tasks
• Demonstrated experience of measuring outcomes and executing initiatives which reduce friction in development and improve developer experience
• Strong customer-outcome-centric approach, able to bring the business context to your day-to-day technical planning and delivery, and infusing this into all interactions with the team
• Self-motivated and energetic leader; you enjoy being your team’s cheerleader and bring passion, energy and empathy to everything you do


The following would further strengthen any application:
• A passion for transport, sustainability, and the built environment
• Hands-on experience with AI or computer vision technologies
• Hands-on experience with DevOps toolchains
• More substantial experience as a developer or researcher

Interview Process

• Initial discussion and CV review by Vivacity’s People team
• Initial interview with Shaun Howell, Head of Research
• Debugging & problem solving interview: 1 hour: you will be presented with problems of increasing complexity, and be asked to resolve issues, as though a team member has come to you with the problem. Topics may include software engineering and ML
• Final round: 2 hours of interviews split into 30 minute technical, 1 hour management skills, 30 minute CEO interview

What we offer:

• 25 days of holiday.
• Flexible working hours and work-from-home options.
• Up to 30 days per year of remote work.
• 3% employer pension contribution.
• £200 total working-from-home budget.
• £850 per year learning and development budget.
• Enhanced parental leave.
• Up to 3 'childcare' or 'dependant' days per year.
• Mental health support through Spill.
• Discounted gym memberships through GymFlex.
• £50 per person per quarter team social budget.
• Additional entertainment budget and company parties.
• Office food and drinks.
• Optional Bupa healthcare and dental care through salary deduction.
• Eye care vouchers.
• Seasonal flu jabs.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Payroll giving through salary sacrifice