Engineering Manager I

About Legal 500

Legal 500 was founded by John Pritchard in 1987 as the original clients' guide to law firms, the first of its kind. It is now a data-driven, AI-optimised research platform which benchmarks, informs and connects providers and users of legal services in over 100 countries worldwide.

Our research and data are trusted and relied upon by corporate clients globally as an essential part of the process, both of instructing law firms with new mandates, and when reviewing existing mandates or panels.

We exist to empower both buyers and sellers in the international legal marketplace to make better decisions and have improved outcomes for their organisations. This is achieved by leveraging a trusted, comprehensive research process with a unique, vast, proprietary and constantly updated set of client-supplied data, unrivalled in the market.

On the supply side of the legal market, every year Legal 500's team of over 150 researchers, technologists, data analysts, journalists and content specialists collate and review 60,000+ data-submissions from law firms and conduct interviews with thousands of leading law firm partners. On the demand side, Legal 500 analyses confidential data from 300,000+ commercial law firm clients to benchmark law firms and lawyers by practice area; industry; jurisdiction; as well as by proprietary client satisfaction metrics, NPS , and other qualitative and quantitative criteria.

Legal 500 is the only source of this depth of global research and data on law firms, lawyers and their clients.

About the Role

An Engineering Manager I at Legal 500 will have the opportunity to manage and support a collaborative engineering team, providing day-to-day guidance and fostering a positive, productive working environment. This role focuses on coordinating team delivery, contributing to technical decisions, maintaining high-quality engineering practices, and supporting the growth and development of individual engineers.

We see this role as a rare opportunity for in the software engineering space to make the step into formal engineering management. We don't think this role will suit a fully-fledged Engineering Manager, more someone who has, for example, led a small team, has mentored and coached engineers or has seen a project through from end-to-end. We feel this is a great opportunity for you!

What you'll be doing

• Ensure the team consistently meets commitments, manages risks early, and delivers high-quality work on schedule.
• Enable team members to show measurable progress in skills, performance, and satisfaction, supported by regular coaching and feedback.
• Work with the team to maintain strong engineering practices (testing, code quality, documentation), following agreed development processes.
• Contribute to fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and psychologically safe team environment.
• Participate in hiring and onboarding activities, supporting the growth and retention of engineering talent.
• Support the team through the software development lifecycle, helping plan and deliver work in line with agreed priorities and commitments.
• Work closely with Product Managers and senior engineering leadership to clarify requirements and translate them into actionable technical tasks.
• Reinforce established development processes and best practices across Agile delivery, DevOps, and CI/CD, rather than defining new ones.
• Track team progress, surface risks or blockers early, and escalate where needed to keep delivery predictable and sustainable.

What we're looking for

• Extensive experience within the software development space (ideally as an Engineer), with some experience leading teams and engineers whether in a formal or informal capacity.
• Strong knowledge of modern software development practices, programming languages, and cloud platforms.
• Experience leading agile development teams.
• Excellent communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Great cross-functional collaborator.
• Comfort in an environment driven by pace and urgency, with a dollop of ambiguity for good measure!

Role information

• Hybrid role, 3 days a week at our office on Fleet Street.