Engineering Manager

Us: Prolific is not just another player in the AI space – we are the architects of the human data infrastructure that's reshaping the landscape of AI development. In a world where foundational AI technologies are increasingly commoditized, it's the quality and diversity of human-generated data that truly differentiates products and models.

We've built a unique platform that connects researchers and companies with a global pool of participants, enabling the collection of high-quality, ethically-sourced human behavioral data and feedback. This data is the cornerstone of developing more accurate, nuanced, and aligned AI systems.

Our mission is to bridge the gap between AI potential and human insight. We believe that the next leap in AI capabilities won't come solely from scaling existing models, but from integrating diverse human perspectives and behaviors into AI development. By providing this crucial human data infrastructure, Prolific is positioning itself at the forefront of the next wave of AI innovation – one that reflects the breath and the best of humanity.

You: As an Engineering Manager you will have responsibility over one or more of our development teams within the Strategic Accounts and Partners product group. You will be an experienced and versatile engineering leader with responsibilities for product engineering, delivery and people management.

You will be responsible for your team’s impact and behaviours and you will be accountable for timely delivery and high-quality outcomes that make our customers happy and strengthen the position of our business. This is a leadership role that requires you to be adaptable and comfortable in complex scenarios and domains, including client facing scenarios. 

Salary: £100,000-115,000 + bonus + share options

At Prolific we have a united product development group with Engineering, Product, Data, Design and Research all working closely.

Within the product development group, we have cross-functional development teams that are centred on product areas with an associated mission. The teams have the autonomy to self-organise towards the best possible outcomes. We optimise for fast flow of work and search for continual improvement every day. We understand the importance of good engineering practices, so we place collaboration, communities, and personal improvement at the heart of our culture. 

As an Engineering Manager you will be responsible for the engineers in your development teams, and accountable for establishing good engineering practices, timely delivery and high-quality output.  Working in partnership with your product counterpart, you will ensure the team is set up for success to deliver quality software at pace, while supporting the progression and wellbeing of team members.

What you'll be doing

• Leading one or more product development teams, working closely with product management and design. 
• Taking accountability for both the delivery and quality of the team’s output to agreed timelines and high quality standards
• A strong customer focus, making data driven decisions to guide the team
• Manage, coach, and mentor engineers to nurture their growth with the goal of developing the group into a high-performing team
• Where necessary, you will effectively manage the performance of underperforming team members to ensure that the overall team unit remains strong and high-performing
• Working closely with your technical leads, you will ensure that the technical solutions, architectures and designs of your teams align with the overarching company technology and product strategy
• Support your development teams with the delivery of quality software at pace, by facilitating estimation, planning, design and development, and actively helping to remove impediments
• With a You Build It, You Run It mindset, you will champion and contribute to our collaborative DevOps culture, optimising your team for fast flow 
• Understand the architecture, codebase and services your teams works with, and support your technical leads with workshops to facilitate technical decisions that reduce complexity without introducing undue technical debt
• Oversee the support of products or functionality developed by the team and deployed to production.
• Champion our principles, ensure our communities of practice are well established, and contribute to the improvement of our product development culture
• In support of our growth, you will lead the hiring, on-boarding and training of new team members
• You will be looking for opportunities to experiment with better ways of working, understanding where the current constraints are to delivery, and how incremental improvements in ways of working could help, but are not afraid to make radical changes based on proven best practice where necessary

• You are an experienced software engineering manager, having managed development teams of 4 or more engineers
• You have a strong technical background, which informs how you help your team solve problems
• You must be comfortable wearing the hats of a delivery manager and engineering manager for your team—that is, being accountable for understanding customer needs and delivering these to agreed timelines, while also being accountable for the engineering practices and ways of working that lead to high quality software
• You have a deep understanding of both monolithic and distributed web applications and the surrounding stacks, and you have experience building and supporting public cloud apps
• A passion for developing others and experience in managing, motivating, coaching and mentoring others.
• Previous experience of working in an environment with strong engineering practices and the ability to demonstrate how you have improved the culture
• You care about the software product life cycle and are customer value focused
• Ability to demonstrate the use of continuous, iterative improvement and a culture of respectful candid feedback to drive change in your team and across the wider organisation
• A passion for software development, and an appetite for learning and self-improvement
• You have previously been hands-on technically, are comfortable occasionally dipping into the code where it helps the team, and are fluent in communicating technical solutions and their feasibility to non-technical stakeholders