Engineering Manager - EMEA

Pencil

1d • Remote

About The Position

As Engineering Manager at Pencil, you will build and lead the people and ways of working that enable engineering teams to deliver high-quality work quickly. You will manage engineers across several teams and oversee how teams hire, develop, plan and deliver, ensuring they have the clarity, support and processes needed to perform well. This is a people- and process-focused leadership role rather than a hands-on technical delivery role. You will be accountable for the value your teams deliver and for making AI-first ways of working the default while retaining human review and accountability.

Pencil is an advertising technology company whose SaaS product uses Generative AI to support content creation. Its mission is to make AI the default in advertising without replacing creative people, and to make the technology accessible to small businesses and creative individuals as well as large brands.

Requirements

• Several years of experience managing engineers, including multiple teams or other managers, ideally in a SaaS or fast-growing product company.
• A track record of improving team processes and delivery, such as agile practices, planning or metrics, with measurable results, and of building a culture that learns from failure.
• Strong people-management skills, including coaching, candid feedback, performance management and talent development.
• Experience supporting hiring, including interviewing and assessing candidates, retaining high-performing engineers and building diverse teams.
• Technical fluency to understand software delivery, architecture and trade-off discussions, identify technical risks and ask effective questions, without needing to code or design systems.
• A track record of teams delivering measurable customer or business value, not just shipping features.
• Hands-on experience introducing AI tools into team workflows and a clear understanding of where human judgment remains essential.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach and develop engineers and team leads across multiple teams, including regular one-to-ones, feedback, performance reviews and career development using Pencil Pathways.
• Work with other Engineering Managers to align planning, delivery cadence, incident and release management, and retrospectives across teams, and improve those processes.
• Support the TPM in aligning priorities with Product, Design and Data, setting clear expectations and keeping delivery predictable; address people-related blockers.
• Support engineering hiring and onboarding by participating in interview loops, assessing candidates and helping new joiners succeed.
• Build a healthy, inclusive team culture and identify and address conflict, burnout and performance issues early and fairly.
• Promote continuous learning by encouraging experimentation and fast failure, and ensuring failures are reviewed openly and lessons are shared and acted on.
• Maintain a working understanding of team architecture, key systems, trade-offs and technical risks by staying engaged in design reviews, incident reviews and roadmap discussions.
• Hold teams accountable for delivering agreed customer and business outcomes, rather than measuring success only by output shipped.
• Champion AI-first ways of working in engineering practices and the product, with clear human review and accountability for shipped work.

Benefits

• 25 days of paid time off plus public holidays, with a Flexible Time Off scheme.
• Health insurance or private medical cover.
• Monthly stipend for wellness, fitness, and learning and development.
• Remote work from anywhere in the employee's home country.
• Enhanced parental leave for becoming a parent through birth, adoption or surrogacy.
• Access to the Pencil office in The Shard, London for UK employees.
• Flexible working hours.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed