Software Engineering Manager in City of London

We're working with a series A startup building an AI operating system for private capital. They build AI agents that automate the grind of due diligence, research and portfolio monitoring, with every insight traced back to its source. The platform is already in production with multi-billion-dollar PE funds across the UK, Europe and the US. ARR has grown 15x in the last year, and they’re scaling hard into the next phase. Backed by senior operators from top PE funds and investment banks, alongside venture investors.

This is a leadership hire to build and grow the engineering team as it roughly quadruples, from around seven or eight today to 25 over the next 12 months. You'd report to the CTO and own how the team grows, ships and holds its quality bar through that. It's a leadership role, but not one where you step back from the code. They want someone who can hire, develop and direct strong engineers while staying close enough to the work, code review, architecture, unblocking the team, to earn their respect. The wrong fit here is a pure people-manager who hasn't been near a codebase in years. The right fit is someone who has led a team through a scaling phase and still cares about how things get built.

Day to day you’d stand up the hiring loops, onboarding and delivery rhythm a bigger team needs, set objectives and own performance and retention, and partner with the founders on what the team builds and why. High ownership, high intensity, fast.

The stack is Python and FastAPI on the backend, React and TypeScript on the frontend, Postgres, ElasticSearch and vector databases for data, and LLMs, agents and RAG across the AI layer.

What they’re looking for:

• Has built and managed an engineering team through a high-growth scaling phase, not just inherited a stable one
• Still close to the code: recently hands-on, credible in code review and architecture discussions
• Has hired well at pace and can tell a strong engineer from a strong interviewer
• Strong product sense and a genuine interest in the customer
• Comfortable in an early, high-intensity, high-ownership environment, in the office four days a week
• Right to work in the UK (no visa sponsorship at this stage)

Benefits:

• Salary: £130k–£160k, depending on experience
• Meaningful early-stage equity, negotiable for the right hire
• Private healthcare via Bupa
• One month a year fully remote, plus a home-office budget

The process:

• Intro call with Ethiq (30 mins)
• Intro call with the CTO (45 mins): your background, what you have built and led, and what you are looking for next
• Leadership and team-building (60 mins, with the CTO): how you hire, grow and retain engineers and set direction, with real examples from teams you have scaled
• Technical and architecture (60 mins, with the engineering team): a working session on system design and how you would scale the architecture
• Meet both founders in person at the London office

They move quickly and value your time. First-stage calls are usually booked within a few days.