Engineering Manager

NALA

Engineering Manager leading Rafiki engineering squads at NALA, building B2B payments infrastructure. Managing delivery, people growth, hiring, architecture, and Finance and Compliance partnerships.

Posted 9/11/2026full-timeLondon • 🇬🇧 United KingdomJuniorMid-LevelWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates strong leadership in managing engineering teams, with a focus on career development, performance calibration, and effective project management. Possesses hands-on experience in Go programming, architectural decision-making, and cross-functional collaboration to deliver high-quality engineering outputs.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Go Programming ExperienceEngineering Team ManagementProject Management in ScrumRecruitment and Hiring ExpertiseCross-Functional Collaboration

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Go ProgrammingPerformance ReviewsProject ManagementCode ReviewArchitecture ReviewTechnical Decision MakingAgile MethodologiesSlicing InitiativesQuality AssuranceHiring Processes

Soft Skills

Clear CommunicationFeedback ReceptionDiplomacy Under PressureOwnership MentalityReliability

Industry Keywords

B2B ExperienceAPI-as-ProductPayments DomainRegulated EnvironmentEmerging Markets Payment Rails

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

GoRuby on Rails

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Drive delivery, process, and people management within an engineering squad
Act as the connective tissue between Product and Engineering to ensure alignment, predictability, and quality
Report to the Senior Engineering Manager
Partner with the Product Manager, engineers, Growth team, and peer Engineering Managers
Run squad ceremonies, sprint objectives, and roadmap tracking
Keep engineers unblocked day to day
Own squad architectural decisions, review RFCs and PRs, and monitor quality after rollout
Run 1:1s and retrospectives
Own career development and growth of direct reports
Contribute as an IC through small to mid-sized PRs, code review, and incident response
Own hiring for the squad, including hiring plans, recruiting funnel, and onboarding
Serve as primary engineering liaison to Finance and Compliance
Translate business requirements into technically sound solutions
Partner with the Product Manager to align roadmap and delivery and define sprint readiness
Build trusted relationships across the squad and engineering organization
Establish requirements processes, surface assumptions early, and reduce mid-build surprises
Deliver predictably with consistent cadence and defensible forecasts
Clear obstacles and ship features when needed

Requirements

What you’ll need

Deep experience managing engineers directly, not through a matrixed or tech-lead-with-influence structure
Knowledge of excellent engineering output and performance calibration
Ability to run 1:1s, feedback, performance reviews, and career development conversations
Ability to decompose large initiatives into vertical slices and sequence delivery to de-risk unknowns
Enough hands-on Go experience to read code, participate in architecture reviews, and form an independent technical view
Own 1:1 framework, regular feedback, and people-side independence within 30 days
Ability to judge technical quality through PRs and design reviews
Recruitment and hiring experience, including job specifications, scorecards, interview loops, and end-to-end requisition ownership
Project management experience running scrum ceremonies using velocity, cycle time, predictability, and honest forecasting
Cross-functional collaboration with Product, including readiness management and escalation with proposals
Ability to balance quality and pragmatism
Clear, structured English; comfortable writing RFCs and presenting technical decisions
2+ years directly line-managing 4 to 8 engineers
Owned delivery for a squad of 5 to 8 engineers through multi-quarter projects without a dedicated scrum master or delivery manager
Conducted 20+ interviews and owned at least one requisition end to end
Onboarded at least two hires with a structured 30/60/90 plan
Worked on systems supporting thousands of concurrent users and hundreds of thousands of monthly users
Senior-level Go experience, including concurrency, SOLID principles, and strong testing practices
Receptive to feedback and able to change approach visibly
Objective about team performance concerns
Diplomatic under pressure
Reliable follow-through
Comfortable operating with ambiguity in a sub-20-engineer organization
Ownership mentality extending beyond the squad
B2B or API-as-product experience preferred
Payments domain experience preferred
Exposure to emerging-markets payment rails preferred
Experience in a regulated environment preferred

Benefits

Comp & perks

35 days off: 27 days plus 8 UK bank holidays if UK-based
Birthday leave: one bonus day off during the birthday month
Enhanced parental leave: 16 weeks full pay for the primary caregiver and 4 weeks full pay for the secondary caregiver, after probation
Access to WeWork locations worldwide
$1000 annually for learning and development
Private medical insurance for people who come to the London office
Life insurance covering 3x salary for people who come to the London office
Enhanced salary-sacrifice pension scheme via Penfold for UK employees
Hybrid working in the Canary Wharf office four days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday)
Themed snacks and Friday lunch
Monthly social events
Free barista-style coffee