Engineering Manager - Communications Team - UKI

Would you like to create the future of a product used by thousands of businesses and millions of consumers? Phorest Salon Software powers over 11,000 hair and beauty salons in Ireland, UK, Germany, Australia, Finland, USA, Canada, UAE and Netherlands and the platform processes 7 million appointments a month for hair and beauty consumers. Phorest is the number 1 salon software brand for premium independent salons in those markets and our next goal is to become a platform upon which other companies can build applications for premium salons.

Our system touches every point of the salon experience. We have the in-salon software desktop application, Phorest Go (the native staff application), online bookings website for salons, and custom native apps per salon. In a typical month, Phorest processes 3 million appointments and we send over 3 million SMS and 4 million emails. We process 200k online bookings per month and over 150 custom built white label native apps.

We are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our newly formed Communications Team within the Consumer Pillar. We are centralising our communications expertise into one powerhouse team to transition from a transactional messaging service to an intelligent, AI-driven platform. You will lead the effort to unify our existing tools while building the next generation of voice and chat automation.

For this role, you will be primarily responsible for building, hiring and coaching a high performing team of engineers. While you’ll stay technically engaged and contribute to architectural decisions, your priority is ensuring the team is set up for success by removing blockers and fostering growth. You will partner closely with Product and Design to shape our long-term strategy and collaborate across the organization to bridge domain gaps.

This role is perfect for a leader who blends traditional engineering management—mentoring, delivery, and strategy—with a passion for AI/ML. You should be comfortable leading a team through the ambiguity of a new domain, focusing on technical excellence and driving tangible business value through intelligent, automated solutions.

What You'll Do

• Team Leadership: Lead and scale a high-performing engineering team, fostering a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement through coaching and regular 1-to-1s.
• Strategic Delivery: Partner with Product and Design to shape the Communications roadmap, balancing the delivery of new AI-driven features (like AI Frontdesk) with long-term technical health.
• AI & Innovation: Lead the integration of intelligent solutions (AI/ML) and new channels like WhatsApp to create a unified, automated communications platform.
• Operational Excellence: Champion observability and reliability by setting SLOs and ensuring the team has the tooling to proactively manage complex distributed systems.
• Technical Stewardship: Remain hands-on enough to conduct code reviews, guide system design, and remove technical blockers to ensure scalable, resilient architecture.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Align with the Consumer Pillar leadership to ensure your team’s goals drive business value and integrate seamlessly with the wider Phorest ecosystem.
• Brand Advocacy: Contribute to Phorest’s engineering brand by sharing insights, blog posts, or speaking about the team's technical challenges and successes.

Who You Are

• Leadership Experience: 3+ years in an engineering leadership role with a proven track record of managing and developing software engineers.
• Technical Expertise: 5+ years of professional experience in Java and object-oriented design, with a background in building complex distributed systems.
• AI/ML Fluency: Practical experience or a strong understanding of implementing AI/ML solutions to solve customer-facing problems.
• Strategic Mindset: Ability to translate high-level product strategy into predictable, sustainable delivery cycles within an Agile environment.
• Communication Skills: Exceptional ability to collaborate with stakeholders and inspire a team in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
• Education: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.

Benefits

• Your wellbeing is important to us - we provide private healthcare, 2 Wellness Days, an employee assistance program and a free online GP service.
• As part of our Financial Wellbeing, we provide competitive Compensation, an Employee Share Purchase Scheme, Pension, Life Assurance, and Income Protection.
• We help you travel by providing a bike to work scheme as well as tax saver transport tickets.
• We support the women who work in Phorest by offering 2 weeks leave for Fertility Treatment, Pregnancy Loss and Menopause.
• We care for your family and provide Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Benefits.
• We grow our own timber! We provide a great learning environment and extensive development opportunities. We run development programs and provide access to many online resources including LinkedIn learning.
• Moving house? Phorest employees get 3 moving days.

Phorest is an equal opportunity employer. For this position, flexi-time and working from home is possible. We are also open to remote work. Get in touch to ask for more information or to chat about your future with Phorest!

Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other marginalised folks tend to only apply when they check every box. So if you think you have what it takes, but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch. We'd love to have a chat and see if you could be a great fit.