At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead a dynamic engineering team to innovate and deliver cutting-edge car insurance solutions.
- Company: Join Cuvva, a pioneering tech company transforming the insurance industry.
- Benefits: Enjoy a flexible WFH setup, a 4-day work week, and generous holiday allowance.
- Other info: Be part of a diverse team committed to growth and innovation.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in a fast-paced environment while shaping the future of insurance.
- Qualifications: Experience in engineering management or as a tech lead with strong people skills.
The predicted salary is between 94000 - 110000 £ per year.
Location: Very flexible – we’re happy for folks to work WFH and lots of us do. We only ask that you come into our London office a couple of times a month for team strategy days and socials – but of course, you’re more than welcome to come in as much as you like!
We are working a 4‑day work week – Fridays off!
Contract: Permanent
Salary: £94,000 – £110,000 + benefits listed below
About Cuvva
We’re on a mission to give everyone affordable access to a car anytime, anywhere. We offer short‑term car insurance through our world‑class app, creating truly flexible products that meet people’s real needs. Using lightning‑fast technology to unlock better experiences and fairer prices for our customers, Cuvva is building the future of insurance every day.
About the role
As we continue to grow, we’re investing more intentionally in engineering leadership. We’re looking for an Engineering Manager who can bring technical credibility, delivery focus and thoughtful people leadership into our Core product team (5‑7 direct reports). That team is responsible for Cuvva’s flagship short‑term car insurance product – one of the company’s most commercially important product areas.
You’ll work very closely with a dedicated Product Manager, playing an active role in shaping work from the earliest stages. This isn’t a handover model – you’ll help validate ideas, challenge assumptions and ensure what we’re building is both technically sound and commercially meaningful.
This is an especially exciting role for someone who enjoys being close to the detail. You’ll support engineers through technical decision‑making, help the team navigate trade‑offs with confidence, and step in when needed to unblock or move things forward. You’ll create the conditions for people to grow and perform at their best, while ensuring the team delivers real impact.
Core Pillars
- Technical depth (non‑negotiable)
- Dive into codebases when needed to properly understand problems and unblock the team
- Challenge technical decisions, approaches, and trade‑offs with confidence
- Support engineers in thinking through complexity, not just executing tasks
- Contribute to shaping solutions, not just reviewing them
- Bring credibility through your own experience as a software engineer (ideally backend or full stack)
- Delivery ownership (not project management)
- Work closely with the Product Manager to shape work that is valuable, feasible and commercially sound
- Help validate product ideas from a technical perspective early, before they reach delivery
- Challenge estimations and assumptions with context and experience
- Help the team identify and navigate trade‑offs (speed vs quality, scope vs impact, short‑term vs long‑term)
- Ensure the team is set up to deliver effectively, consistently and sustainably
- People leadership (high EQ, high standards)
- Create a psychologically safe, high‑performing team environment
- Invest in your engineers’ growth through coaching, feedback and mentorship
- Spot issues early (burnout, disengagement, performance) and act on them
- Take a genuine interest in helping people progress in their careers
Day‑to‑day responsibilities
- Build trust with stakeholders through clear and open communication, proactively sharing progress, surfacing risks early and bringing people along in decision‑making
- Partner closely with the Product Manager to shape, validate and prioritise work
- Support your team in making strong technical decisions, offering guidance and challenge where needed
- Step in to unblock work when needed, whether that’s through technical input or reframing the problem
- Facilitate planning, ensuring work is well‑scoped, understood and achievable
- Identify risks, bottlenecks and trade‑offs early while helping your team to navigate them
- Hold regular 1:1s, offering coaching, feedback and career development support
- Improve how your team operates, technically, operationally and culturally
- Collaborate with other Engineering Managers to raise the bar across the organisation
- Maintain visibility of your team’s work, progress and challenges across the business
- Contribute to hiring, onboarding and building a strong engineering culture
What makes a great fit
- Can communicate trade‑offs and decisions clearly and quickly, building trust within Engineering, Product and with key stakeholders across the business, knowing when to push back or influence, when to align and when to escalate
- Has experience as an Engineering Manager, or is a Tech Lead / Principal Engineer who has taken on people management responsibilities
- Is proactive in working closely with Product and can contribute to shaping solutions, not just delivering them
- Can think beyond their team, understanding how technical decisions impact customers, business outcomes and long‑term scalability
- Is comfortable challenging engineers constructively, using their own experience to guide better outcomes
- Is passionate about delivery and outcomes, not just activity, and can help teams make the right trade‑offs
- Is a thoughtful, proactive people manager who invests in their team’s growth and wellbeing
- Enjoys working in cross‑functional product teams in a lean, fast‑moving environment
- Has a mindset of continuous improvement, always looking to raise the bar
- Is comfortable asking not just ‘can we build this?’ but ‘should we build this, and what’s the right way to do it?’
- Is excited by AI‑assisted software development and curious about how emerging tools can improve engineering effectiveness, quality and delivery
Bonus
- Works closely with Product Management & Design within a highly collaborative trio model to deliver high‑quality mobile‑first product experiences
- Has worked in regulated environments (e.g. finTech, InsurTech, HealthTech etc.)
- Has contributed to engineering culture, standards or strategy beyond their immediate team
Our 2026 Engineering Strategy
- AI‑first: We’re investing in automation and building AI‑powered features to serve customers better and faster
- Proactive mindset: We take initiative, spot problems early and act fast
- Data‑driven decisions: Hypotheses are tested. Gut feel isn’t good enough
- Pareto principle: Get 80% of the value with 20% of the effort, polish only when it matters
- Testing‑first mindset: Stability matters. We test, we ship, we learn
Tech stack
- Backend: Go (Golang)/Node.js/PostgreSQL/MongoDB/Redis/Event‑driven architecture/Microservices
- Frontend: React/TypeScript
- Mobile: Swift & SwiftUI (iOS)/Kotlin & Jetpack Compose (Android)
- Platform & Infrastructure: AWS/Kubernetes (EKS)/Docker/Terraform/Amazon EventBridge/Elasticsearch
- Incident management: Incident‑io
- AI: Multi‑provider, Anthropic, OpenAI and internal AI tooling
Benefits
- Very flexible WFH set‑up, we only ask folks to come in a couple of times a month for team strategy days and socials – but of course, you’re more than welcome to come in as much as you like
- A four‑day work week (Fridays off)
- Transparent salary model and bands for all roles (without sharing anyone’s individual salary)
- 20.5 days of holiday a year + public holidays – rising with each year at Cuvva (holidays have been prorated based on our 4‑day work week)
- Quarterly team socials and company events
- Private medical insurance with Bupa
- Professional development budget
- Health, WFH and wellbeing budget
- Increases to all allowances year on year
- Enhanced parental leave and pay
- Cycle to work scheme
- Mental health and coaching support – free and confidential access to comprehensive mental healthcare and coaching through Oliva
- Hundreds of perks and discounts with Perkbox
- £100 a month towards your Cuvva car insurance
- Referral bonus when you bring your friends to join the Cuvva team
Diversity, inclusion and belonging at Cuvva
At Cuvva, we’re dedicated to building an environment where individuals from all walks of life feel a sense of belonging and have the support they need to thrive. To us, it’s crucial that our differences are embraced and celebrated, and that you’re able to bring your whole self to work every day. Research shows that men apply to jobs if they meet ~60% of criteria, but women and those in traditionally underrepresented groups tend to apply only if they check all the boxes. If you think you have what it takes but don’t meet every single point above, please still get in touch. We’d love to chat and see if you could be a great fit.
Engineering Manager in London employer: Cuvva Limited
Cuvva is an exceptional employer that prioritises flexibility and work-life balance, offering a four-day work week and a supportive remote working environment. With a strong focus on employee growth, Cuvva provides ample opportunities for professional development, alongside comprehensive benefits including private medical insurance and mental health support. The vibrant London office fosters a collaborative culture, where team members are encouraged to innovate and contribute to meaningful projects in the fast-evolving insurtech space.
