Engineering Manager

Role: Engineering Manager

Contract: Permanent

Salary: Competitive

Location: Oxford (Didcot, Harwell)

Security clearance: This role requires eligibility for UK security clearance (BPSS and SC). SC requires 5 years of continuous UK residency. An active SC or DV clearance is a strong advantage. If you are not currently eligible, we will not be able to progress with your application.

A note from the Founders

Oxford Dynamics is at an inflection point.

We build frontier technology for environments where the cost of a wrong decision is measured in lives, not revenue: defence, national security, and the convergence of AI and robotics. We are growing fast, and the constraint on how fast is no longer ideas or opportunity. It is whether our best engineers are set up to do their best work.

That is the job we are hiring for. Not to add another layer, but to take direct ownership of a team of exceptional engineers and make them measurably more effective. You will be trusted to run your team with minimal oversight, held to a single high standard, and judged on one thing above all: whether the people in your care are producing work that matters, at the pace this mission demands.

If you are the kind of leader who takes that ownership personally, who raises the bar rather than manages to it, and who wants to see the direct line from your team to systems deployed in the most demanding environments on earth, we would love to hear from you.

Who We Are

 Founded in 2019, Oxford Dynamics is a fast-growing UK frontier technology company developing both digital and physical AI systems built to operate in dynamic, mission-critical environments.

At the core of everything we build is AVIS™ (A Very Intelligent System), our orchestration platform: the intelligence layer that fuses multi-modal data, including text, imagery, telemetry and sensor feeds, so operators can interrogate complex information at speed and make better decisions under pressure. AVIS™ powers our digital decision products, such as ORION for multi-source decision-to-effect, and it powers our physical platforms, including STRIDER for CBRN operations and BARBARIAN for explosive ordnance disposal. The same brain reasons across the screen and the machine.

We work where wrong decisions can be catastrophic, partnering with defence and security organisations internationally to help protect nations, infrastructure and lives.

Requirements

The Role

As Engineering Manager, you own the engineers: their productivity, their growth, their performance, and the day-to-day conditions they need to deliver. This is a people-first leadership role, distinct from delivery management and distinct from product. Delivery owns what ships and when. Product owns what we build and why. You own the people who build it and whether they are effective.

That ownership is real. If the team is not delivering the return the business needs, that is yours to diagnose and fix, not to explain. The single standard for this role is simple: are your engineers producing work that matters, at pace, and are they getting better while they do it. Everything else in this description is in service of that.

You will run your team autonomously, within the technical direction set by the CTO. You are trusted with judgement calls and expected to make them. You will hold the technical bar high, unblock and develop your people, and build the mechanisms that make your team's delivery visible, so leadership does not have to ask whether the team is on track. They will be able to see it.

This is not a pure people-management role. You need enough engineering depth to be credible in technical discussions, to make sound calls on design and quality, and, critically, to know the difference between a real blocker and an excuse. You will not be the primary delivery resource, and you do not need to be the strongest coder on the team. But when a piece of work is late or an outcome is not landing, you must be able to get close enough to the work to find out why, rather than depending on the team's own account of it.

Key Responsibilities

● Own the return on your team. Take direct ownership of whether your engineers are delivering the value the business needs. When they are not, work alongside them to diagnose where the real constraint is, technical, structural or personal, and remove it.

● Make delivery visible. Build and run the mechanisms, metrics, cadence and escalation paths that make your team's productivity inspectable, so performance is a matter of evidence rather than impression.

● Coach and grow your engineers. Develop the team through regular 1:1s, honest feedback, career development and stretch. Move each engineer forward, and address underperformance early and directly.

● Hold the technical standard. Set and uphold engineering practice, code quality, testing, review and architectural discipline, keeping a consistently high bar across the team's work, within the direction set by the CTO.

● Stay technically credible. Engage with design and code deeply enough to earn the team's respect and to make sound quality and design calls, without becoming the primary delivery resource.

● Handle the day-to-day. Be the person the team comes to. Clear blockers, resolve friction, and take care of what your engineers need to stay focused and effective.

● Partner with delivery and product. Work closely with those who own delivery and product so your engineers are well-directed, well-represented and pointed at the right problems.

● Build the team. Recruit, onboard and shape a healthy, high-performing engineering culture that raises its own bar over time.

What We're Looking For

● Proven experience leading and growing software engineering teams, with real ownership of engineers' productivity, performance and development.

● A genuine engineering background. You must be credible enough to engage with architecture, code and technical decisions and to tell when you are being given a real answer versus a comfortable one, even if you no longer code full-time.

● Demonstrated ability to diagnose why a team is or is not delivering, and to act on it, rather than relying on the team's own account.

● A track record of developing engineers through coaching, mentoring, feedback and direct performance management.

● Experience setting and holding engineering standards, code quality, review, testing and architecture, across one or more products.

● Comfort operating autonomously, running a team with minimal oversight and being trusted with judgement calls.

● Clear, structured communication across technical and non-technical audiences, and the judgement to keep leadership informed through evidence.

● Calm, judgement-led decision making, and comfort operating in ambiguity with fast-moving priorities.

Nice to Have

● Experience spanning multiple products or a broad technical estate.

● Background in AI, robotics, or other data-intensive, mission-critical systems.

● Experience in defence, security or other regulated, high-assurance environments.

Benefits

Why This Role?

This is a role for a leader who wants ownership, not oversight. You will have the autonomy to shape how your part of engineering runs, the mandate to grow a group of genuinely talented engineers, and a direct line of sight from your team's work to systems deployed in some of the most demanding environments in the world. If you lead people well, hold a high bar, and take the return on your team personally, we would love to meet you.

Why Oxford Dynamics?

Join one of the most exciting, fastest-growing areas in the world: the convergence of AI and robotics. Every member of the Oxford Dynamics team has a major impact on the products and services we provide. Regardless of job title, you will make a real difference and learn from colleagues across every area of our business.

Benefits include:

● Competitive salary, dependent on experience

● Career progression and meaningful ownership

● The opportunity to shape the future of a fast-growing, successful early-stage business

● Flexible and hybrid working pattern

● Company pension (UK Government NEST scheme) with company contributions at 4%

● Private healthcare

● 29 days holiday in addition to public holidays (full-time equivalent)

Oxford Dynamics is committed to creating an inclusive team experience for all. Regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, or parental status, we believe our work is at its best when everyone feels free to be their authentic self.