Engineering Manager in Portsmouth

Aveni is redefining how financial institutions use AI. We build real, production-ready agentic systems that reshape how banks, advisers and financial services firms operate, replacing fragmented processes with intelligent, end-to-end workflows. We have been recognised as Fintech of the Year for two consecutive years and awarded Best Specialist Technology Service at the Professional Adviser Awards 2025. Backed by leading investors including Puma Private Equity, and commercially supported by Lloyds Banking Group and Nationwide Building Society, we previously completed one of Scotland’s largest Series A rounds. Since then, we’ve continued to grow rapidly as adoption of AI in financial services accelerates, and we’re now scaling our team to meet that demand.

The Role

We're hiring an Engineering Manager to lead and grow one of our engineering teams. This is a people first role for someone who is genuinely excited about the craft of leadership. You will own the performance, growth, and culture of your team, working closely with Product and Lead Engineer to create an environment of genuine ownership and high autonomy. This role requires a strong engineering background, not to own the technical direction, but to earn credibility, ask the right questions, and know when to step in.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Own performance, development, and progression of your team.
• Own the individual performance and development of your direct reports, setting a high bar, giving honest feedback, and creating conditions for engineers to grow into real ownership.
• Build a self-organised team, initially playing a facilitating role in ceremonies, with the explicit goal of no longer being needed to run the process.
• Partner with Product on roadmap planning, making sure engineers understand the context behind the work, not just the tickets in front of them.
• Own your team's delivery, keeping engineers unblocked, priorities clear, and commitments met.
• Spot patterns in how your team operates, design better ways of working, and build the automation that powers those improvements.
• Stay close enough to the codebase to spot friction, improve developer tooling, and engage credibly in technical discussions, without stepping onto the critical path.
• Drive hiring alongside our Recruitment team, contributing to interview process design, and a high-quality candidate experience.
• Set the cultural expectation around AI coding tools, building team-wide norms for responsible, high-quality AI-assisted engineering.

What We’re Looking For

• Extensive experience in software engineering, with genuine hands-on technical experience.
• Proven experience as an Engineering Manager or Team Lead, with real ownership of individual performance and team culture.
• A track record of building high-trust, high-autonomy teams.
• Good understanding of Node.js or Python, and React.
• Experience with Agile/Scrum, and a track record of improving how teams deliver.
• Genuine excitement about AI coding tools.
• You enjoy management and leadership problems.

Why Aveni

• We're building AI systems for a sector where trust and safety genuinely matter.
• High-trust, high-autonomy culture: we give engineers real ownership and expect them to use it.
• AI-native engineering culture.
• High-growth fintech at an exciting moment.

Join Us in Making a Difference

At Aveni, we believe that diversity drives innovation. We’ve built our business to ensure an inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute their best work. If you’re passionate about technology and its ability to drive positive change for the future of financial services, we’d love to hear from you. Even if you don’t meet 100% of requirements, we’d like to hear from you anyway if you believe you’d fit in. Apply now to join us on our mission to transform the financial services industry through AI.

Benefits at Aveni:

• We’re a remote-first company across the UK, with regular off-sites and in-person gatherings that are always fun, motivating and team-focused.
• Work abroad policy.
• Co-working spaces available.
• 34 days holiday (including flexible bank holidays) and your birthday off.
• Company-wide off-sites.
• Optional Personal Development Plan.
• Flexible benefits platform.
• Protection essentials including Life Insurance, Income Protection, Critical Illness cover, and Pension (up to 5% matched employer contribution with optional increased contributions).
• Private health and dental care.
• Potential share options.
• Enhanced family leave.