Engineering Manager, Java, Kafka, AWS, SOX & Data Migration

Engineering Manager | Engineering Management, Java, Kafka, AWS, SOX & Data Migration

The Rate - £90 per hour
IR35 Status - Inside IR35
The Location - Manchester
The Working Pattern - Hybrid, one day per week in the Manchester office
Duration - Six-month rolling

About the Client

Digital Skills are working with a large travel and software business undertaking a major transformation of its enterprise technology platforms. The organisation is modernising a critical Legacy ERP environment and developing new cloud-based integrations to support its future finance and operational capabilities.

About the Role

This is an opportunity for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead a Manchester based engineering team through a complex replatforming and data migration programme.

The role combines people leadership, technical direction, platform ownership and delivery accountability. Although this is not a day to day coding position, the successful candidate must remain technically credible and be comfortable challenging architecture and implementation decisions.

The role requires a practical engineering leader rather than someone whose recent experience has focused solely on people management.

Responsibilities

• Lead, manage and develop a team of software engineers
• Create an inclusive, high-performing engineering culture based on ownership, quality and continuous learning
• Take responsibility for engineering delivery, platform health and technical quality
• Provide technical direction across Java, Kafka and AWS-based services
• Guide architecture and implementation decisions across the engineering team
• Lead the modernisation of Legacy systems and support a major enterprise platform migration
• Oversee complex data migration and systems integration activities
• Partner with Product Managers, architects, security specialists and risk stakeholders
• Shape product roadmaps, engineering priorities and delivery plans
• Embed agile working practices and maintain appropriate engineering standards
• Ensure systems meet relevant SOX, data protection and non-functional requirements
• Support incident escalations and promote effective production ownership
• Drive technical debt reduction and improve system documentation
• Coach and mentor engineers, including working with the team at a detailed technical level
• Encourage innovation while maintaining the reliability of critical production systems

Desired Skills and Experience

• At least two years of formal engineering management experience
• Ten or more years of relevant Back End software engineering experience
• Strong engineering leadership and people management capabilities
• Substantial technical experience with Java
• Experience designing or operating event-driven systems using Kafka
• Knowledge of AWS and cloud computing fundamentals
• Proven experience modernising Legacy systems
• Experience leading major replatforming, transformation or migration programmes
• Practical data migration and systems integration experience
• Experience working with critical or highly regulated production systems
• Knowledge of SOX controls and associated engineering obligations
• A strong understanding of technical quality, architecture and non-functional requirements
• Experience managing technical debt, documentation and operational ownership
• The ability to coach engineers and challenge technical implementation approaches
• Excellent verbal, written and stakeholder communication skills
• Finance or enterprise ERP experience would be advantageous
• Experience managing complex people matters within an engineering team

Summary of the Best Candidate

The best candidate will be an established Engineering Manager with at least two years of formal management experience and a strong earlier career in Back End software engineering. The candidate should have ten or more years of relevant technical experience, with particular strength in Java, Kafka, AWS and the modernisation of complex Legacy systems.

This role requires a hands on technical leader who can guide architecture, question implementation decisions and coach engineers without needing to write code every day. The successful candidate will have led significant data migration or replatforming programmes and will understand the demands of operating critical systems within a SOX-controlled or similarly regulated environment.