About this role
As the Engineering Manager, you will take on a player-coach role, responsible for building and leading a team of 5–6 engineers. You will oversee development, ensure product stability, and foster a strong engineering culture in Manila. This role involves close collaboration with the UK-based VP of Engineering, Agile Delivery Manager, Product, and Design teams.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Team Leadership & Development
Recruit, hire, and onboard 5-6 engineers (2 QA, 3-4 Full-Stack) within your first 3 monthsConduct face-to-face interviews in Manila, partnering with our VPE and Head of Talent remotelyHold regular 1-1s, performance reviews, and career development conversationsFoster technical excellence and continuous learning within your team
Hands-On Technical Contribution
Spend 30-40% of your time coding alongside your team once the team is establishedConduct thorough code reviews ensuring adherence to the company’s standardsProvide PHP/Laravel expertise for mentoring and problem-solvingMake technical decisions for bug fixes and customer enhancementsUse monitoring tools (Sentry, Datadog) to proactively identify and resolve issues
Delivery & Collaboration
Own the RUN workstream (80% bug fixes, 20% customer enhancements)Partner with our Agile Delivery Manager to define your team's delivery processEnsure P0/P1/P2 bugs are resolved within SLAsParticipate in daily standups with VPE and ADMMaintain 9am-12pm UK time-availability for critical collaboration
Knowledge Transfer & Quality
Lead knowledge absorption from UK team during ramp-up periodEnsure your team documents learnings and creates runbooksUse our monitoring and alerting using Sentry and DatadogPartner with our Senior Customer Support Engineer on bug investigations
Requirements
Must-have Skills / Qualification:
Proven track record as a player-coach in similar sized teamsStrong hands-on PHP/Laravel expertise that's current and deepExperience building and scaling offshore/remote teams Background in maintaining systems whilst ensuring stability
Technical Excellence
Expert-level PHP/Laravel knowledge for code reviews and mentoringStrong understanding of MySQL, Redis, and caching strategiesExperience with AWS services (RDS, EKS preferred) Proficiency with monitoring tools (Sentry, Datadog)Understanding of CI/CD practices and deployment pipelines
Leadership & Communication
Demonstrated ability to recruit and build teams from scratchExperience managing mid to senior-level engineersExcellent English communication (written and verbal)Strong async communication skills for distributed team collaborationCultural sensitivity and ability to bridge working stylesAbility to balance hands-on coding with management responsibilities
Advantageous Experience/Skills:
Experience in B2B SaaS or cybersecurity domainsFamiliarity with enterprise integrations (SCIM, SAML, OAuth)Understanding of GDPR and data protection requirementsKnowledge of agile methodologies (Scrum/Kanban)Understanding of frontend technologies and frameworks.