Engineering Lead - People Technology

This job is with Wise, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money. Min fees. Max ease. Full speed. Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their lives easier and save them money.

About the role: This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the technical foundation that empowers Wise employees to achieve our mission. As the Engineering Lead (EL1) for our People Technology Growth team, you will move beyond managing isolated SaaS tools to own the end-to-end digital employee experience - spanning from attraction to offboarding. The Growth team operates with a product mindset to improve internal customer satisfaction and tool adoption. You will lead a globally distributed team of engineers across hubs like London, Singapore, and Austin, ensuring high-performing execution, technical reliability, and an exceptional user experience for all Wisers.

How we work:

• Scale & Impact: You’ll be responsible for systems and journeys that support thousands of global employees in a fast-growing, publicly-traded fintech.
• Autonomy: We don’t do micro-management. As an EL1, you will own the technical roadmap for your team, deciding how to build scalable solutions for our internal product domain.
• Product-Minded Engineering: You will shift the paradigm from reactive IT ticket-solving to modern platform engineering, building a cohesive employee "Journey Layer".
• Mission-Driven Culture: Join a company that values transparency, "customer first" (even internal customers), and getting it done. We empower teams to make decisions and take ownership.

What will you be working on?

• Technical & Product Ownership
• Own the Technical Roadmap: Drive the technical roadmap for the People Tech Growth team, actively identifying and addressing technical debt, reliability, security, and scalability concerns.
• Deliver the Journey Layer: Ensure the team shifts from purely maintaining SaaS configurations to supporting end-to-end employee journeys with genuine engineering rigor.
• Maintain Product Quality: Hold a high standard for the quality of the products you own, deeply caring about the internal customer experience.
• Day-to-day Execution: Act as an active contributor to the delivery of your team by supporting daily execution, managing incident resolution, and establishing appropriate support SLAs and documentation.
• Standardise Engineering Rituals: Implement a "Think, Build, Fix" framework using Jira Product Discovery (JPD) for ideation, Jira Software for planned builds, and consistent bi-weekly agile sprint cadences.

• Leadership & People Management
• Manage & Coach: Take direct line-management responsibility for a global team of engineers (spanning IC1 to IC3 levels). Manage their performance, growth, and well-being through active coaching and feedback.
• Cultivate Culture: Foster an egoless culture of strong ownership, inclusivity, and open two-way feedback where every engineer is accountable for their outcomes.
• Hiring & Onboarding: Actively participate in the interview panel to grow the team, following best practices and ensuring the successful onboarding of new hires.
• Team Balance: Ensure the team’s composition is balanced and sized correctly to hit short-term delivery goals and long-term strategic plans.

What do you need?

• Engineering Leadership: Experience managing or leading engineering teams, with a proven track record of coaching talent, conducting performance reviews, and building high-performing cultures.
• Domain Expertise: Good experience within the HR Tech ecosystem or employee experience platforms (e.g. recruitment tools, onboarding systems, core HRIS systems).
• Technical Background: Strong engineering foundation with experience delivering technical roadmaps and making sound architectural/integration decisions (APIs, data mapping, automated workflows).
• Value-Driven & Collaboration: Strong communication skills with an ability to collaborate across functions (Product, Design etc) to challenge opinions in an egoless manner and align technical capabilities to the product roadmap.
• Structured execution: Ability to bring structure to complex environments, coaching the team through a new way of working to align with the engineering practices of the wider Platform tribe.

Nice to Have:

• Experience working in a fast-paced environment with a cross-functional, globally distributed team.
• Strong understanding of agile development methodologies.
• Background in turning traditional IT support/service processes into automated, self-service platform products.

What do we offer: Starting salary: £105,000-£135,000 + RSUs

For everyone, everywhere. We're people building money without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive. We're proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences. Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to contribute towards our mission and able to progress in their careers.