Engineering Manager (multiple openings)

Job Description

THE CARWOW GROUP

Carwow Group is driven by a passion for getting people into cars. But not just any car, the right car. That’s why we are building the go-to destination for car-changing. Designed to reach drivers everywhere with our trail-blazing portfolio of personality rich automotive brands; Carwow, Auto Express, evo, Driving Electric and Car Buyer.

What started as a simple reviews site, is now one of the largest online car-changing destinations in Europe - over 10m customers have used Carwow to help them buy and sell cars since its inception. Last year we grew over 50% with nearly £3bn worth of cars bought on site, while £1.8bn of cars were listed for sale through our Sell My Car service.

In 2024 we went big and acquired Autovia, doubling our audience overnight. Together we now have one of the biggest YouTube channels in the world with over 1.1 billion annual views, sell 1.2 million print copies of our magazines and have an annual web content reach over 350million.

WHY JOIN US?

We are winners of the prestigious Culture 100 award that recognises the most loved and happiest tech companies to work for! We have just raised $52m in funding led by global venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners (an early backer of LinkedIn and Shopify) to accelerate our growth plans!

As pioneers, we’re always driving for new territory and positive change, so our work as a group is never done. Where others see difficulty, it’s our responsibility to see possibility – building new experiences, launching new titles and listening to drivers.

Being a part of Carwow Group means championing drivers and the automotive industry, acting as a disrupter and never being afraid to fail (but learning fast when we do!).

Our team of 500 employees across the UK, Germany, Spain and Portugal are revolutionising car-changing and we are fast expanding our mission across every single brand and country we operate in, so jump in!

THE ROLE

We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to join and support our expanding team. This role is hands-off from a technical perspective and is a people management focused role, reporting to and partnering closely with our Senior Engineering Managers, you’ll also collaborate with our Engineering Manager cohort to support our 35 (and growing) Engineers across 6 cross-functional Product Teams. You will support our customer or commercial facing engineering teams as they develop essential components of our platform and data strategy to expand Carwow's operations.

It’s an exciting opportunity to join a growing company and have a real impact on the culture and environment as we go along this journey. You’ll have an opportunity to influence everything from daily engineering practices to defining our future engineering organisation structure, and everything in between.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Managing, leading and mentoring between 6-12 people across 1-2 teams - through relationship building, 1:1 coaching, goal setting and feedback.
• Work with Product Managers and Lead Engineers to foster effective, healthy autonomous teams.
• Empower teams by coaching, sharing business context, translating a sense of purpose, and advocating for their needs.
• Work with the People team and other Engineering Managers on the implementation and evolution of our career progression, compensation and performance evaluation frameworks, along with other strategic initiatives.
• Act as the hiring manager for different engineering roles and work on improving diversity and inclusion within engineering
• Ensure clear direction, vision, and strategy for your teams and promote a positive and inclusive culture
• Communicate effectively, handle unforeseen issues, and represent the company in various ways
• Attract talented engineers and actively build relationships with senior members of the organisation
• Coach and mentor direct reports, support systemic improvements, and make a difference in team effectiveness and output
• You must at all times strive to act in the customers’ best interest, delivering honest, fair, and professional services

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

Please note: We know that no candidate will be the perfect match for all we've listed in this posting, so we’d encourage you to apply if you feel you're close to the brief but not an exact match. Ideally you’ll have:

• Experience leading and managing engineering teams - you possess thought leadership and critical thinking skills
• Previous experience as a hands-on Software developer is key to being a mentor, however, you now enjoy working and developing your team
• Clear communication and collaboration skills - you enjoy partnering and strategising with Stakeholders to influence our products
• You’ll need to challenge the status-quo - we’re a fast-growing tech-scale up and we like to apply a growth mindset to the way we do things
• Play a key role in participating in networking events and conferences that we host/run/sponsor
• Enjoy leading distributed teams and working cross-functionally with product managers, stakeholders, and other developers
• Be able to manage and coach remote employees effectively

INTERVIEW PROCESS

Step 1: Talent Screen

Step 2: People Management Interview

Step 3: Teams and Processes Interview

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU

• Remote working with 4-5 trips to London each year.
• Competitive salary to fund that dream holiday to Bali
• Matched pension contributions for a peaceful retirement
• Share options - when we thrive, so do you!
• Vitality Private Healthcare, for peace of mind, plus eyecare vouchers
• Life Assurance for (even more) peace of mind
• Monthly coaching sessions with Spill - our mental wellbeing partner
• Enhanced holiday package, plus Bank Holidays
• 28 days annual leave
• 1 day for your wedding
• 1 day off when you move house - because moving is hard enough without work!
• For your third year anniversary, get 30 days of annual leave per year
• For your tenth year anniversary, get 35 days of annual leave per year
• Option to buy 3 extra days of holiday per year
• Work from abroad for a month
• Inclusive parental, partner and shared parental leave, fertility treatment and pregnancy loss policies
• Bubble childcare support and discounted nanny fees for little ones
• The latest tech (Macbook or Surface) to power your gif-sending talents
• Up to £500/€550 home office allowance for that massage chair you’ve been talking about
• Generous learning and development budget to help you master your craft
• Regular social events: tech lunches, coffee with the exec sessions, lunch 8 learns, book clubs, social events/anything else you pester us for
• Refer a friend, get paid. Repeat for infinite money

Diversity and inclusion is an integral part of our culture. We know that diverse teams are strong teams, so we welcome those with alternative identities, backgrounds, and experiences to apply for this position. We make recruiting decisions based on experience, skills and potential, so all our applicants are treated fairly and equally.