Engineering Manager - Partner Proposition

Hi! We're UW. We’re on a mission to take the headache out of utilities by providing them all in one place. One bill for energy, broadband, mobile and insurance and a whole lot of savings!

We’re aiming to double in size as we help more people to stop wasting time and money—big ambitions, to be delivered by people like you.

Got your attention? Read on…

The challenge

For our customers and Partners, UW just needs to work – there when you need it, and invisible when you don’t. Just like flicking a switch.

Our proposition to customers is simple, but for our technology teams, the behind-the-scenes complexity is what makes it so interesting. Learn more about life in our Tech teams here.

Job Description

We work together. Your team and the people you will work with…

You’ll work closely with a small team of engineers, supporting both the technical direction and the people behind it. This role blends hands-on involvement with leadership, helping guide delivery while staying connected to the details when needed.

You’ll collaborate with product manager to shape priorities, balance new work with ongoing improvements, and keep the team focused and supported. You’ll also connect with other leaders across the organisation to share practices and help strengthen our engineering culture as we grow.

We deliver progress. What you’ll do and how you will make an impact.

As an Engineering Manager at UW you create clarity, consistency, and momentum in your squad. You set direction, ensure high standards in both delivery and quality, and balance short-term goals with long-term sustainability. You invest in people through coaching, feedback, and development, while fostering a positive team culture. You communicate effectively across levels, manage complexity, and continuously grow as a leader in order to enable your teams to do their best work. You will have the following responsibilities:

• Technical Mastery: Take responsibility for the technical decisions the squad makes and ensure they align with company and technical strategy. You have a clear understanding of the engineering practices within the team and identify opportunities for improvement. You understand all of the technologies used by UW in your squad, and how they fit together.
• Impact: Take an integral role in defining team goals and ensuring proposed work is aligned with them. You drive prioritisation within the team to best achieve goals. You push yourself and the team to achieve team goals.
• **Operational Excellence:**Identify and put in place practices needed to ensure security and operational service level objectives (SLOs) are met. You coordinate with your squad — and others as needed — to ensure organisation-wide on-call coverage. You drive the squad to operational excellence, leading regular metrics reviews to ensure high coverage and performance
• **Planning & Delivery:**Work with the Product Manager and team to set objectives and key results (OKRs) that align with company goals. You identify risks and blockers early and work with stakeholders to mitigate them. You measure team performance so that you can continually improve it. You communicate team progress against OKRs, key performance indicators (KPIs) and other milestones to relevant stakeholders. You co-lead annual and quarterly planning for your squad.
• **People & Coaching:**You ensure the squad is staffed with the technical skillsets to deliver objectives, developing skills within team members and/or hiring as needed. You onboard, train, develop and coach your reports to facilitate their career growth. You participate in performance calibration and promotion reviews for your squad.
• Business & Domain knowledge: Understand and communicate company, department, and pillar strategy and goals to your squad. You interact with stakeholders from across the business in order to provide insight and context to their teams.
• Leadership & Culture: Teach our culture to others and foster a healthy dynamic within your team. You help to resolve interpersonal conflicts and gather, share and act on feedback. You effectively communicate company and department changes to your squad. With help from your manager, you raise the team's voice to senior leadership. You collaborate effectively with cross-functional colleagues, such as UX and data. You co-lead your squad with your squad's Product Manager. You ensure team expenditures (both OpEx and CapEx) are in line with budgets

Qualifications

We put people first. It’s all about you…

Technical Mastery:

• Knowledge (experience is a bonus) of our core tech stack; gRPC, GraphQL, React, Kafka, Docker & Kubernetes, experience with Go is preferred but not essential.
• Experience taking responsibility for technical decisions and aligning them with strategy.
• A clear understanding of engineering practices and ability to identify improvements.

Impact:

• Experience defining team goals and driving prioritisation to achieve them.
• Planning & Delivery:
• Ability to work with Product Managers to set OKRs aligned with company goals. Ability to co-lead annual and quarterly planning.
• Experience identifying risks early and mitigating them.

Operational Excellence:

• Experience identifying practices for security and SLOs.
• Ability to drive operational excellence and lead metrics reviews.

People & Coaching:

• Experience of managing a team of engineers.
• Proven ability to onboard, train, develop, and coach reports, as well as. participating in performance calibration and promotion reviews.
• Business & Domain Knowledge:
• Intermediate awareness of customer and market insights.
• Ability to communicate strategy to the squad.

Leadership & Culture:

• Experience fostering a healthy team dynamic and resolving interpersonal conflicts.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional colleagues.

So why pick UW?

We’ve got big ambitions so there’s going to be plenty of challenges. There are also a lot of benefits:

• Competitive salary: We benchmark against the industry and will share the salary openly during our first conversation.
• Performance bonus: An annual discretionary bonus ranging from 15-40%.
• Flexible working: We’re a remote-first business.
• Work-life balance: We offer an optional four-day working week (90% pay for 90% impact).
• Work from anywhere: You can work abroad for up to three weeks, twice every tax year.
• Holiday: 25 days plus bank holidays (increasing with tenure), with the option to trade up to five days each year.
• UW discounts: Save on our services and get a free Cashback Card.
• Future planning: Matched-contribution pension scheme and life assurance (up to 4x salary).
• Family first: Policies designed to help you and your family thrive.
• Flexible benefits: An allowance for private health insurance, dental insurance, or gym membership.
• Sabbaticals: An eight-week paid sabbatical after four years of service.
• Growth: A dedicated learning and development budget and bi-annual promotion cycles.
• Inclusion: Join belonging groups that help shape our culture.
• Events: Company-wide celebrations including the ‘Great Big Get Together’ and our ‘Good Hearted Go-Getter Awards’.

Not sure you meet all the requirements? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other underrepresented groups tend not to apply for jobs if they think they may not meet every qualification, when in fact they often do.

We provide equal opportunities, a diverse and inclusive work environment, and fairness for everyone. You are welcome to apply no matter your age, disability, gender, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity status, race, religion or belief, or sexual orientation. Please don’t be afraid to ask about what we can do to support your needs. All requests will be carefully and fairly considered.

Please note, if you are successful and offered a role at UW, you will be subject to a background check. Where checks are unsatisfactory or incomplete and/or a failure to reveal information relating to convictions that you are required to identify as part of the background checks, could lead to withdrawal of an offer of employment.