Engineering Manager

Runs two six-person cross-functional teams at an assessment software business, one permanent and one a temporary cover. Backend is .NET Core and C#, with Docker, CI/CD through Octopus Deploy and a fair amount of identity work, OIDC, OAuth 2.0 and single sign-on, plus feature flag services. Eight years hands-on before they moved into leadership, so they still review code and sit in the technical calls.

Looking forThey're ready for a bigger job after a few years in the same place, want clearer career direction and more money, and are open to either senior engineering or engineering management, leaning management on the strength of running two teams.

How they came acrossTalked about mentoring people into senior and principal-track roles and about handling conflict in the team, which is not where most team leads go first. Straightforward about wanting a step up rather than dressing it up as anything else.

Platform and SRE lead at a machine learning fraud detection company now owned by a global payments network. Builds on Kubernetes with Terraform, Ansible and ArgoCD, and is one of the few people we see who is genuinely fluent on-prem as well as across AWS, Azure, OCI and GCP. Holds both the Certified Kubernetes Administrator and the Kubernetes Security Specialist, and has run SLA and SLO management under PCI DSS and ISO 27001.

Looking forThe acquisition brought red tape they don't want. They raised it internally, nothing changed, and they're now actively in processes elsewhere. Wants somewhere scrappy with real autonomy, fintech or financial services preferred, and hybrid or remote.

How they came acrossNearly left a year ago with an offer in hand, stayed when the role changed, and is now going again with their eyes open. Knows exactly what they don't want and said it plainly, which made the conversation quick.

Tech lead over roughly 5 engineers inside a UK homewares retailer of about 10,000 people with a 200-strong engineering function. Serverless TypeScript is their home ground, AWS Lambda and CDK with Pulumi, GraphQL and React on top, and most of their work is architecting the integration between in-house software and third party ERP. Also drives the AI workflow automation push there.

Looking forThe office mandate is tightening and the commute is awkward, and they're near the ceiling of what the job offers. Wants remote-first or a short commute, more ownership and hours that don't run to 12.

How they came acrossNot in a rush and not unhappy, which showed in how they talked about it. Careful about company size, ruled out anything under 15 people, and was upfront that work-life balance is part of the decision rather than a thing they'd pretend not to care about.