Engineering Operations Manager

Key areas of responsibility

• Building an accurate view of how engineering is operating across the business – unearthing delivery pressure points, capability gaps, scaling risks, and operational improvements early.  
• Interrogating forecasts, delivery assumptions, engineering demand, and technical constraints to understand the realities of trade-offs and priorities across the organisation.  
• Turning fragmented information from projects, teams, bids, and delivery reviews into clear operational insight that supports fast, high-conviction decisions.  
• Leading engineering improvement initiatives across tooling, workflows, and engineering ways of working. 
• Spending time close to the teams and the work, understanding how engineering operates on the ground rather than relying purely on reporting.  
• Driving the operational cadence of the engineering function across planning, reviews, reporting, and cross-functional coordination.  
• Coordinating the engineering graduate scheme, including rotations, placement planning, and helping build long-term engineering capability across the organisation. 

Key skills, experience and behaviours

• Experience operating within scaling engineering or technical delivery environments where priorities, demand, and constraints are constantly evolving.  
• Strong systems thinking and operational judgement, with the ability to understand how decisions in one area impact delivery, teams, and engineering capacity elsewhere.  
• The ability to absorb complex information quickly, identify patterns and risks early, and bring clarity to ambiguous situations.  
• Sufficient technical fluency to engage confidently with engineers across multiple disciplines and build credibility within technical teams.  
• A naturally curious and proactive approach, with a desire to understand how teams really operate and where improvements can have the biggest impact.  
• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the confidence to challenge constructively and navigate competing viewpoints or priorities.  
• High levels of ownership, organisation, and follow-through, with the ability to maintain momentum across multiple initiatives at once.  
• A pragmatic mindset focused on helping engineering teams scale effectively without adding unnecessary process, overhead, or complexity. 

• Curious about how engineering organisations really operate and motivated by solving operational challenges.  
• Comfortable operating across fast-moving teams, competing priorities, and technical domains.  
• Confident asking difficult questions, challenging assumptions, and bringing clarity to ambiguity.  
• Pragmatic and execution-focused, with a bias toward improving how teams work without adding bureaucracy.  
• Motivated by helping engineering teams scale, collaborate effectively, and do their best work.  

Working at Rowden