Engineering Manager - Application Platforms

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Engineering Manager - Application Platforms

Location: London /Hybrid

Reporting to: Head of Technology Operations

Engineering Managers at Rightmove help engineers make great technical decisions and develop their skills and experience. They support efficient team-working, set technical standards and direction, and grow strong communities of technical practice. The Engineering Manager - Application Platforms, manages the team responsible for delivering the tools and technology platform that supports application delivery and reliability across all Rightmove Product Engineering teams.

Our focus is to provide a secure and highly performant application platform to allow safe, fast and frequent delivery of functionality across the consumer and customer digital experience underpinning the Rightmove business. The role reports to the Head of Technology Operations and works closely with the Core Infrastructure and Database Engineering Manager, Technical Product Owner and Agile Delivery Manager.

As part of the wider Product Development group, we recognise that to deliver the best products and features for our consumers and customers we need to work together as a high performing technology organisation. We work collaboratively across a mix of product focused and centralised teams, together working to enable Rightmove's strategy.

A typical week as a Platforms Engineering Manager might involve:

• Unblock an initiative or clarify the scope or outcomes to speed up time to value
• Support prioritisation across the team's projects and support initiatives
• Support engineers to actively drive forward our technology platform, and manage technical debt
• Maintain supplier relationships and documentation
• Identify and address key risks in relation to people, process or technology, escalating promptly where necessary
• Promote craftsmanship and quality, establishing high technical standards and continuous improvement
• Manage an incident and run a PIR with your team
• Explore new ways to deliver frequently and reliably into production
• Taking part in technology planning and shaping the platform roadmap
• Help drive the adoption of a SRE culture across Rightmove engineering teams
• Coach and develop your people, with regular 1-to-1s and continuous feedback
• Build technical communities, where teams are encouraged to share knowledge and help each other
• Hire great people for the team's long-term success and deliver an amazing candidate experience

We're looking for someone who:

• Has previous hands-on software/platform engineering experience and can mentor software/platform engineers
• Understands application delivery and deployment pipelines and best practice patterns
• Has experience working with highly distributed application platforms
• Is comfortable working in hybrid cloud environments, and with multiple SaaS partners
• Creates an environment that encourages people to try out new things and learn from their mistakes
• Will take the initiative when spotting an opportunity for improvement
• Can tackle complex problems and help drive the right technology solution
• Champions resilience, scalability, security and privacy, ensuring they're at the forefront of decision-making
• Understands the wider architectural impact and ensures a continuous evolution of the platform
• Encourages open two-way feedback so that teams share honestly, early and often
• Is passionate about technology and engineering craftsmanship
• Brings stakeholders on the journey to encourage buy-in and help shape plans

We are specifically looking for the following background:

• Has been a role model for their peers in the engineering management community and can effectively influence managers as well as tech leadership
• Is deeply technical but can also communicate opinions, thoughts and ideas clearly and simply in a constructive manner
• Has demonstrable experience supporting the growth of engineers and getting the best out of their teams
• Is a low-ego team player who values, honesty, transparency, and collaboration and is focused on delivering valuable outcomes
• Deep understanding of a secure software delivery lifecycle including the people, process, and technology used as well as the outcomes
• Experience in the design, build and operation of secure cloud application platforms (ideally GKE/K8s) and infrastructure on GCP (AWS also OK) for production workloads (ideally large-scale websites)
• Experience in the design, build and management of CICD pipelines for applications and providing centralised DevOps support to many product teams
• Experience developing infrastructure as code (IAC), building IAC pipelines and automation, and can articulate and drive best practices across multiple modularised repositories.

In addition, you will have the opportunity to work across a variety of other technologies including Confluent Cloud Kafka, Elasticsearch on Elastic Cloud, CockroachDB, Oracle, Couchbase, Apigee, OpsLevel and more so any previous experience is welcome.

About Rightmove

Our vision is to give everyone the belief they can make their move. We aim to make moving simpler, by giving everyone the best place to turn to and return to for access to the tools, expertise, trust and belief to make it happen.

We're home to the UK's largest choice of properties, and are the go-to destination for millions of people planning their next move, reading the latest industry news, or just browsing what's on the market.

Despite this growth, we've remained a friendly, supportive place to work, with employee #1 still working here! We've done this by placing the Rightmove Hows at the heart of everything we do. These are the essential values that reflect our culture, and include:

• Be approachable and appreciate what others do
• Make complex things as simple as possible
• Build great teams, because Rightmove is people
• Drive improvement, we can always be better
• Share early, honestly and often

We believe in careers that open doors, and help our team develop by providing an open and inclusive work environment, offering ongoing training opportunities, and supporting charity fundraising events. And with 88% of Rightmovers saying we're a great place to work, we're clearly doing something right!

If all this has caught your eye, you may well be a Rightmover in the making...

What we offer

People are the foundation of Rightmove - We'll help you build a career on it.

• Cash plan for dental, optical and physio treatments
• Private Medical Insurance, Pension and Life Insurance, Employee Assistance Plan
• 27 days holiday plus two (paid) volunteering days a year to give back, and holiday buy schemes
• Hybrid working pattern with 2 days in office
• Contributory stakeholder pension
• Life assurance at 4x your basic salary to a spouse, family member or other nominated person in your life
• Competitive compensation package
• Paid leave for maternity, paternity, adoption & fertility
• Travel Loans, Bike to Work scheme, Rental Deposit Loan
• Charitable contributions through Payroll Giving and donation matching
• Access deals and discounts on things like travel, electronics, fashion, gym memberships, cinema discounts and more

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Rightmove will never discriminate on the basis of age, disability, sex, race, religion or belief, gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, or sexual orientation.

At Rightmove, we believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce leads to better innovation, productivity, and overall success. We are committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for all employees, regardless of their background or identity, to develop and promote a diverse culture that reflects the communities we serve.

Ultimately, we care much more about the person you are, and how you think and approach things, than a list of qualifications and buzzwords on a CV. Even if you can't say 'yes' to all the above, but are smart, self-motivated and passionate about Customer Care, then get in touch.