At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead a cross-functional squad to enhance user trust and safety on our platform.
- Company: Join Depop, a vibrant peer-to-peer fashion marketplace with a mission for circular fashion.
- Benefits: Enjoy flexible working, mental health support, and generous parental leave.
- Other info: Be part of a dynamic team with excellent career growth opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in building trusted online communities while developing your leadership skills.
- Qualifications: Strong software engineering background and experience in managing diverse teams.
The predicted salary is between 80000 - 96000 £ per year.
Depop is a peer-to-peer circular fashion marketplace where anyone can buy, sell and discover secondhand fashion. Our mission is simple: to make fashion circular by making secondhand as exciting and rewarding as buying new.
Founded in 2011, Depop’s diverse community has helped move resale into the mainstream, where buying secondhand is no longer an alternative, but how people of different ages now engage with fashion. Today, more than 56 million registered users come to Depop to find great value, express their own personal style and give clothes a longer life.
We aim to create an inclusive environment where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are or where they’re from. Just as our platform connects people globally, we believe our workplace should reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. We thrive on the power of different perspectives and experiences, knowing they drive innovation and bring us closer to our users.
We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer, providing employment opportunities without regard to age, ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy or maternity, marriage and civil partnership, or any other protected status.
About the role
Depop is looking for a UK-based Engineering Manager to lead our Trusted Community squad. The team’s mission is to create a community of trusted users by keeping people safe and giving them a clear path to success.
Trusted Community is a well-established cross-functional squad made up of backend and iOS engineers, working closely with a dedicated Product Manager and Product Designer. The team builds the user education, trust signals, controls, and interventions that help Depop feel safe, fair, and trusted.
The work includes areas such as user guidance, risk-based controls, age verification, gating, listing review, message interventions, account-level controls, and other compliance-sensitive experiences. This is a complex and fast-changing space, where the team needs to move quickly, learn fast, and make thoughtful trade-offs across user experience, technical quality, fairness, compliance, and legal obligations.
This role is well suited to an Engineering Manager with a strong software engineering background, strong product judgement, and the confidence to engage deeply with technical direction when needed.
What you’ll do
- Lead, support, and develop a cross-functional squad of backend and iOS engineers.
- Own the team’s delivery, health, and product outcomes.
- Help the team create clarity in a complex and evolving problem space.
- Drive progress at pace, with a strong focus on learning, iteration, and measurable impact.
- Stay close to technical direction, architecture, and engineering trade-offs.
- Dive into technical detail when needed, while enabling senior engineers to lead on implementation and technical design.
- Challenge assumptions constructively across Engineering, Product, Design, and stakeholder groups.
- Help the team make balanced decisions across user safety, fairness, usability, compliance, legal obligations, technical quality, and delivery.
- Make risks, dependencies, and decisions visible early, so the right support and alignment are in place.
- Build an inclusive team culture where people can contribute, learn, challenge ideas respectfully, and grow.
What we’re looking for
- Experience managing, coaching, or developing engineers.
- A strong software engineering background, with confidence engaging in technology, architecture, and technical trade-offs.
- Strong ownership of team health, delivery, and product outcomes.
- The ability to create momentum by clarifying next steps, unblocking decisions, and helping teams make progress.
- Comfort working in ambiguous or fast-changing problem spaces.
- The confidence to challenge engineers, product partners, and stakeholders constructively.
- The judgement to balance speed of learning with responsible delivery in sensitive user-facing areas.
- A collaborative leadership style, with empathy, clear communication, and the ability to work through disagreement constructively.
- Motivation to protect users and help build trusted online communities.
Helpful experience, not required
- Trust and safety product experiences: user education, trust signals, safety prompts, warnings, restrictions, appeals, or other features that help people participate safely and fairly.
- Risk-based controls and interventions: controls that adapt based on user behaviour, risk signals, account state, eligibility, verification level, policy requirements, or marketplace context.
- Age assurance and compliance-sensitive experiences: age verification, age estimation, youth safety, safeguarding, gating, or related user journeys.
- Experiment-led product engineering: leading teams that use data, experimentation, measurement, and iteration to improve user-facing outcomes.
- Complex user-facing systems: building systems where reliability, fairness, privacy, user experience, and operational impact all matter.
- Cross-functional delivery: working with Product, Design, Policy, Legal, Operations, Trust and Safety, Security, or Compliance partners.
What’s in it for you
This is an opportunity to lead an established team working on one of Depop’s most meaningful product areas. You’ll help build experiences and platform capabilities that protect users, support genuine buyers and sellers, and strengthen trust in the Depop community.
Depop offers flexible working, inclusive parental leave, mental health support, learning budgets, volunteering time, and benefits designed to support people inside and outside work.
Engineering Manager - Trusted Community employer: Depop
DEPOP is an excellent employer that fosters a collaborative and innovative work culture, where Senior iOS Engineers can thrive while leading architecture for impactful user experiences. Located in Greater London, employees enjoy flexible working options, comprehensive healthcare access, and generous leave policies, all of which support a healthy work-life balance. With opportunities for mentorship and professional growth, DEPOP is dedicated to empowering its team members to make meaningful contributions to the secondhand fashion marketplace.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Engineering Manager - Trusted Community
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Depop or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Depop.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Depop.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Depop that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Engineering Manager - Trusted Community
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Depop.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Depop and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Depop
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Depop uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.