Engineering Manager - EMEA - Remote

About us

At Pencil, we are driving innovation in advertising technology through our state-of-the-art SaaS product, which harnesses Generative AI to redefine content creation. Our mission is to make AI the default in advertising without replacing creative people. To achieve this, we need to make sure that our technology isn’t just in the hands of big brands - we need to try to help small businesses and creative individuals too.

The role

As Engineering Manager, you will be part of building and leading the people and ways of working that let our engineering teams ship great work, fast. You will manage engineers across several teams, own how those teams hire, grow, plan and deliver, and make sure each team has the clarity, support and process to do its best work. This is a leadership role focused on people and process, not hands-on technical delivery. You will be accountable for the value your teams deliver, and for making AI-first ways of working the default while keeping a human in the loop.

Key responsbilities

Lead, coach and develop a large group of engineers and team leads across multiple teams, running regular 1:1s, feedback, performance reviews and career development against Pencil Pathways

Work with the other Engineering Managers to keep our existing processes (planning, delivery cadence, incident and release management, retros) aligned across teams, and contribute ideas and improvements to make them lighter and better

Support the TPM in aligning priorities with Product, Design and Data, setting clear expectations and keeping delivery predictable across teams, and step in on people-related blockers

Support hiring and onboarding for engineering: take part in interview loops, help assess candidates and set new joiners up to succeed

Build a healthy, inclusive team culture; spot and resolve conflict, burnout and performance issues early and fairly

Build a culture of continuous learning: encourage teams to try things and fail fast, and make sure every failure is reviewed openly so the learning is shared and acted on

Build a working understanding of what your teams are building (architecture, key systems, trade-offs and technical risks) by staying close to design reviews, incident reviews and roadmap discussions, so you can ask the right questions and back your leads' technical decisions

Hold your teams accountable for delivering value: tie work to agreed outcomes for customers and the business, not just output shipped

Champion AI-first ways of working across your teams, in how engineers build and in the product, with clear human review and accountability for what ships

Your background

Several years managing engineers, including managing multiple teams or other managers, ideally in a SaaS or fast-growing product company

A track record of improving team process and delivery (e.g. agile practices, planning, metrics) with measurable results, and of building a culture where teams learn from failure

Strong people management: coaching, giving candid feedback, managing performance and growing talent

Experience supporting hiring (interviewing, assessing candidates) and retaining high-performing engineers, and building diverse teams

Technical fluency: you can follow how software is built and shipped, understand architecture and trade-off discussions, spot technical risk and ask good questions, and earn engineers' trust, without needing to code or design systems yourself

A track record of teams delivering measurable value (customer or business outcomes), not just shipping features

Hands-on experience introducing AI tools into how a team works, with a clear view of where human judgement stays essential

You'll thrive here if you...

Move quickly and keep processes simple, always asking what else we can take away (Fast, Simple)

Bring fresh ideas to how teams work and are led (Surprising)

Treat people as people, with empathy, honesty and care for how our teams feel about the work (Human)

Take full ownership of outcomes for your teams, including when things go wrong (Owners)