Engineering Manager / Scrum Manager, Home Based

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!

Contract: Permanent

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.

Cuvva was the first to sell hourly insurance via an app in the UK back in 2016. We’ve sold over 15 million policies, and supported over 1.5 million drivers and we’re just getting started. 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), the team responsible for Cuvva’s flagship short-term car insurance product and one of the company’s most commercially important product areas.

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. 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.

At Cuvva, Engineering Managers are aligned and measured against three core pillars:

• You won’t be coding day-to-day, but you’ll be deeply technical.
• Bring credibility through your own experience as a software engineer (ideally backend or full stack).
• Delivery ownership (not project management).

Help validate product ideas from a technical perspective early, before they reach delivery. Help your team identify and navigate trade-offs (speed vs quality, scope vs impact, short-term vs long-term). 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.

We care deeply about building an environment where engineers can do their best work and you’ll play a key role in that. Build trust with stakeholders through clear and open communication, proactively sharing progress, surfacing risks early and bringing people along in decision-making. 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. Collaborate with other Engineering Managers to raise the bar across the organisation.

Contribute to hiring, onboarding and building a strong engineering culture. Are able to 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. Have experience as an Engineering Manager, or are a Tech Lead / Principal Engineer who has taken on people management responsibilities. Can think beyond your team, understanding how technical decisions impact customers, business outcomes and long-term scalability. Care about delivery and outcomes, not just activity, you can help teams make the right trade-offs. Are excited by AI-assisted software development and curious about how emerging tools can improve engineering effectiveness, quality and delivery.

It’s a bonus if you:

• Work closely with Product Management & Design within a highly collaborative trio model to deliver high-quality mobile-first product experiences.
• Have contributed to engineering culture, standards or strategy beyond your immediate team.

You’ll be joining an established Engineering Manager community, where ideas are shared openly, challenges are discussed honestly, and there’s a strong focus on continuously improving how we lead and deliver. While you’ll have clear ownership of your immediate team, you won’t operate in isolation. Alongside delivering product initiatives, you’ll also be expected to contribute to the wider engineering discipline, improving standards, shaping ways of working, and supporting engineering-wide initiatives that raise the bar across the organisation.

You’ll also need to take a broader view of planning and resourcing, recognising that squad needs are not always isolated. That means working closely with other Engineering Managers and leadership to think through shared priorities, dependencies, team capacity, and where engineering resources can have the biggest impact. We’re looking for someone who can zoom in and out with ease, caring deeply about their team, while also making thoughtful decisions that support the wider engineering organisation.

Our 2026 Engineering Strategy: We’re not just here to write code, we’re here to redefine how car insurance works. Our 2026 engineering strategy is built on five principles:

• We’re investing in automation and building AI-powered features to serve customers better and faster.
• Data-driven decisions: Get 80% of the value with 20% of the effort, polish only when it matters.
• Testing-first mindset: We test, we ship, we learn.

Technologies: js/PostgreSQL/MongoDB/Redis/Event-driven architecture/Microservices, Frontend: React/TypeScript, Swift & SwiftUI (iOS)/Kotlin & Jetpack Compose (Android), Platform & Infrastructure: AWS/Kubernetes (EKS)/Docker/Terraform/Amazon EventBridge/Elasticsearch.

Initial chat with People Team (60m), Deep Dive + technical session with Head of Engineering & team (90m), Founders chat with our CEO, Freddy (30m).

As well as a competitive salary (£94,000 - £110,000 depending on experience), benefits of working at Cuvva include:

• 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!
• 20.5 days of holiday a year + public holidays - rising with each year at Cuvva (holidays have been prorated based on our 4DWW).
• 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 - We offer 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.

Our approach to hybrid working is very flexible: we only ask people to come a couple of times a month for team building or company events. You can of course come into the office as much as you like!

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. 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. We'd love to chat and see if you could be a great fit.