Engineering manager Automation

Hybrid based in our London, Bath or Edinburgh office. Seccl is the Octopus-owned embedded investment platform that’s on a mission to help more people invest and invest well. We’re B‑Corp certified with an amazing product‑market fit, impressive early traction and the potential to transform an outdated industry, for the better. We’ve been growing fast and will scale even faster over the next few years.

The role

As an Engineering Manager, you’ll play a pivotal role in Seccl’s next phase of growth. This is a genuinely cross‑company role, focused on solving real operational and product problems wherever they exist. You’ll work closely with teams across the business to understand complex processes and identify where automation and AI can remove friction, reduce risk, and improve outcomes. The team’s focus is on AI‑enabled automation: designing and delivering solutions that make day‑to‑day work measurably easier, faster, and safer. This includes applying automation, data, and AI capabilities in a pragmatic, responsible way: augmenting human decision‑making, improving consistency, and strengthening control in critical workflows. The emphasis is on production‑ready solutions with real impact, not experimentation for its own sake. Success in this role comes from delivering meaningful operational improvement, underpinned by strong engineering discipline, governance, and resilience.

This is a leadership role with both delivery and growth accountability. You’ll work closely with Product, Compliance, and domain engineering teams, alongside leaders across the wider business, to identify and address the operational and technical challenges that constrain Seccl’s growth. Your leadership will directly influence how automation and AI are used across the organisation to improve efficiency, strengthen control, and enable Seccl to scale safely as the platform and customer base continue to grow. This role goes beyond day‑to‑day squad leadership: you’ll help shape the technical direction, operating model, and long‑term strategy for automation and AI, influencing how these capabilities are applied across Seccl as the business scales.

The Automation team delivers solutions using a mix of technologies, including cloud services, custom‑built integrations, and the Microsoft Power Platform. The team includes experienced Power Platform engineers, and part of this role is to ensure these capabilities are applied thoughtfully, with appropriate engineering discipline, governance, and integration alongside other technologies where they are a better fit.

On a typical day you will be:

• Partnering closely with Product managers to define priorities, plan delivery, and align initiatives with Seccl’s commercial, regulatory, and platform goals.
• Supporting and challenging technical decision‑making, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, compliant, and well‑integrated across the wider platform.
• Remaining hands‑on where it adds value – through design reviews, architectural spikes, prototyping, or unblocking complex delivery challenges.
• Working closely with Platform engineering and other domain leaders to ensure strong cross‑squad collaboration and consistency.
• Owning delivery health across your domain, including production readiness, incident response, and operational excellence.
• Using metrics and feedback to continuously improve delivery predictability, system reliability, and team effectiveness.
• Contributing to broader engineering leadership discussions, helping shape how engineering operates at Seccl as we scale.
• Leading, coaching, and mentoring engineers within the Automation team, fostering a culture of high performance, psychological safety, and continuous improvement.
• Building and evolving a high‑impact automation squad, shaping team structure, onboarding, and ways of working to support a growing cross‑company remit.
• Providing technical leadership and architectural oversight for automation solutions, including workflow orchestration, integrations, data movement, and the responsible application of AI where appropriate.

This role is for you if:

• You are an experienced Engineering Manager who has led production teams and is ready to take on a broader, cross‑company remit with real organisational impact.
• You have a strong track record of building, coaching, and developing engineers, including shaping ways of working for teams that operate across multiple stakeholders and problem spaces.
• You’re comfortable balancing strategic thinking with hands‑on execution, and can lead a squad that delivers value across the business rather than within a single product domain.
• You bring strong communication and stakeholder‑management skills, and can work effectively with Product, Compliance, and teams across the wider organisation.
• You’re confident working across our tech stack: Node.js, React, MongoDB, AWS, Lambda, Serverless Framework, and JavaScript/TypeScript, and can engage credibly in architectural and technical discussions.
• You have recent, practical experience working with automation and AI‑assisted capabilities, and are motivated to continue building and applying these approaches responsibly in production environments.
• You are confident in Prompt Engineering and verifying that the combination of Prompt + LLM produces acceptable production‑ready output.
• You have experience with automation and workflow platforms, and are comfortable onboarding onto new tools and ecosystems.
• You’re comfortable operating across a mixed technology landscape, integrating automation solutions with APIs, data platforms, and cloud services rather than treating them as isolated tools.
• You enjoy staying close to the technology and can provide meaningful technical guidance and challenge, without needing to be the primary hands‑on contributor.
• You have experience working in regulated or operationally complex environments (such as financial services, fintech, or other compliance‑heavy domains), and value strong governance, security, and resilience.
• You care deeply about building automation that delivers real, sustained business value, reducing manual effort, improving consistency, and making complex processes safer and easier to run.
• You’re excited by the opportunity to help shape how automation and AI are used across Seccl as the company continues to grow.

This role isn’t for you if:

• You rely on a lot of top‑down direction. Here, you’ll have a lot of freedom and ownership of your role, and you’ll be expected to shape your own progression.
• You’re not comfortable working in a fast‑paced environment. Our speed and scalability are what set us apart; you need to be able to act quickly and think on your feet.
• You struggle to follow through on ideas. We value people who do what they say they will. If you care about something, you have the freedom here to make it happen.
• You don’t like change. You’ll get on great here if you relish the ambiguity of rapid growth and are willing to embrace uncertainty.

What’s in it for you:

• £110,000 salary depending on experience + reviewed annually.
• 27 days holiday + bank holidays (some can be flexible) + day off on your birthday + three days (full time) per year for dependant leave.
• Two volunteering days per year.
• Option to work abroad for up to six weeks a year.
• Secclbrate – our recognition programme that offers a mix of flexible rewards including extra pay, additional holiday and increased learning budget.
• Length of service award: one month paid sabbatical at eight years.
• 6% employer pension contribution, and life assurance.
• Private medical insurance with AXA Health.
• Enhanced parental leave.
• MacBook and up to £500 home office set up budget.
• £750 per person learning budget.
• Health and wellbeing initiatives including free therapy via Wellness Cloud, mental health support via Headspace.
• Strong financial wellbeing focus including access to Octopus Money, Octopus Share Incentive Plan and will‑writing offering via Octopus Legacy.
• Perkbox Flexi‑points giving you a range of discounts and perks including free weekly coffee, gym and retail discounts.
• Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work and Octopus Electric Vehicle Leasing.

Our culture

We’re proud to put people first, creating a culture where we truly listen to what matters most to them. Our transparent and inclusive environment encourages diversity of thought, challenge and experimentation.

Interview process

• First round – 60 min system design technical round.
• Second round – 45‑min leadership and cross‑functional collaboration.
• Final round – 45 min bar‑raiser culture‑based interview.

We will only close this role once we have enough applications for the next stage. Please submit your application as soon as possible to make sure you don’t miss out and you should expect to hear back from us within one to two weeks of applying. Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive company of awesome people, with unique skills, passions and experiences. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, or veteran, neurodiversity or disability status. If this sounds like your kind of thing, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t tick every box. We’d love to hear from you!