Remote Engineering Manager - UK in Southend-on-Sea

Hi, I’m Colin, Director of Engineering, Europe. I’m looking for an engineering manager to help us build a different type of engineering team and culture at Ashby. We need to be different because engineers often know what needs to be done but struggle due to processes or lack of data. We want to normalise skunkworks projects where engineers take total ownership of problems and drive them to completion.

At Ashby, we’re building an optimistic environment that embraces innovative engineers. Our engineering leaders will focus on individual performance, process, and culture rather than running sprint planning or driving product decisions. You’ll build your team, develop their skills, and create an empowering environment for them to do their best work consistently.

We prefer junior EMs to have around 6 direct reports, allowing them to spend time observing, correcting, praising, and coding with the teams. We’ve gathered an experienced, talented, and collaborative team of over 25 engineers, and you’ll help manage this growing team in Europe.

Some examples of work our engineering leaders have done include:

• Providing feedback on product and technical specs to help engineers identify where to cut scope or improve quality.
• Growing engineers to take large, loosely defined projects and deliver them with minimal intervention.
• Jumping into systems and code to debug customer issues, ship small bug fixes, or improve developer experience.
• Improving how we generate and simulate data in demo accounts.

As a manager, I aim to support every engineer I work with, ensuring they have the guidance I received from my best manager. I enjoy solving complex problems with long-term impacts on the company and people's lives. One of my proudest achievements is creating a fully transparent pay system that was well-received by the team.

I’m looking for someone who is passionate about both management and being technical. You should be able to spot patterns within your team, figure out better operational methods, and build automation to support these improvements. We value engineering leaders who are great engineers and enjoy keeping their skills up-to-date.

Why You Should or Shouldn’t Apply:

• You love being technical and can hold in-depth conversations across various engineering domains.
• You enjoy management challenges and are excited about helping people reach their potential.
• You hold your team to high standards and provide constructive feedback.
• You are an excellent and empathetic communicator.
• You understand what exceptional engineers look like and how to recruit and grow them.
• You thrive in high-trust, high-autonomy environments.

You shouldn’t apply if:

• You don’t enjoy coding or staying current with technology.
• You entered management as the only growth path available.
• You want to make all product decisions instead of empowering your team.
• You prefer a team of engineers that are predominantly early-career and don’t thrive with ownership.
• You believe that common processes must be implemented for consistent product delivery.

What We’re Building:

Ashby provides talent teams with intelligent software that automates and simplifies many tasks, improving the hiring process. We focus on designing products that are approachable for beginners while being powerful for advanced users. We have many customers, great revenue growth, and strong investors.

Our engineering culture is motivated by the belief that a small, talented team can build high-quality software quickly. We value collaboration, deliberate communication, and focus time, allowing engineers to concentrate on their work without constant meetings.

We built Ashby to deliver quality and depth expected from larger teams through investment in developer tooling and creating powerful, customizable products efficiently.