Engineering Manager

Role overview

We are hiring an Engineering Manager to lead a software team in Auckland, New Zealand. This role focuses on turning product priorities into working software, guiding agile delivery, and building a high-performing engineering culture.

Key responsibilities

• Translate the product backlog into a practical delivery plan and ensure the team consistently ships working software.
• Act as the scrum master and keep agile ceremonies running smoothly.
• Set sprint objectives and help the team meet them.
• Encourage strong unit testing practices and a disciplined approach to quality.
• Own team performance and help maintain delivery momentum.
• Promote the routines needed to achieve and sustain continuous delivery.

Team leadership and delivery

• Build a team environment based on trust, respect, and openness.
• Increase transparency around development work and progress.
• Set clear expectations for the team.
• Coach and mentor team members to strengthen technical capability.
• Support the growth of skills and career development across the team.
• Lead project planning and delivery from start to finish.
• Facilitate daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint demos, and retrospectives.
• Support user story estimation and delivery planning.
• Track progress and remove blockers that slow the team down.
• Drive delivery of technical solutions within tight timelines.
• Encourage innovative, well-structured solution design.
• Maintain strong code quality through reviews and engineering discipline.
• Champion the development processes, tools, and techniques agreed by the team.

Stakeholder and cross-team collaboration

• Communicate with internal and external business stakeholders.
• Coordinate with third-party development partners when required.
• Work with peer teams to keep quality and processes consistent across the organization.
• Provide technical guidance and subject matter expertise for challenging issues and solution design.

Skills and experience

• Strong understanding of agile methods and frameworks.
• Deep familiarity with web technologies used in a development environment.
• Solid grasp of the full software development lifecycle.
• Proven ability to manage and motivate teams to deliver against goals and deadlines.
• Knowledge of architectural approaches such as SoC, DI, MVC, MVVM, or microservices.

Personal qualities

• Leads through example.
• Shows strong thought leadership.
• Communicates clearly in both spoken and written form.
• Comfortable facilitating meetings and driving productive outcomes.
• Professional, motivating, and dependable as a leader.
• Able to balance competing priorities across the team and individuals.
• Genuinely enthusiastic about software development.

Qualifications and experience

• A degree in Computer Science or a closely related discipline is required.
• At least 6 years of hands-on experience as a senior developer and team leader is expected.

Performance expectations

• Team leadership and delivery account for 70% of the performance measure.
• Success as scrum master is assessed through the team’s ability to set and achieve sprint goals.
• Working effectively with others is measured through 360 review feedback.
• Learning and development account for 30%, including a strong appetite for learning and continuous improvement.
• The role involves working with the line manager to define learning goals and demonstrating progress against them.