Role Summary
Lead a cross-functional engineering team at the intersection of technical excellence and business impact. This isn't a management role that's drifted away from the code - you'll spend 40-50% of your time hands-on-keyboard, setting engineering standards through demonstration rather than documentation. You'll build high-performing teams, ship products that matter, and pioneer AI-native engineering practices that transform how we deliver value.
You own outcomes, not just outputs. Your tribe's success is measured by business impact, delivery predictability, and engineering quality - not by hours logged or ceremonies attended. You balance the urgent against the important, champion technical health alongside feature delivery, and create environments where talented engineers do their best work.
Core Responsibilities
Engineering Excellence
1. Spend 40-50% of your time engineering - writing code, reviewing pull requests, and solving hard technical problems alongside your team.
2. Guide architectural decisions that make systems secure, scalable, maintainable, and observable.
3. Define and govern engineering standards across your team through code reviews and technical leadership.
4. Drive AI tooling adoption across development workflows - ensuring every engineer leverages AI to accelerate their work.
5. Champion technical debt reduction and modernization initiatives, balancing delivery speed with long-term system health.
6. Partner with Solutions Architecture to align engineering capabilities with architectural vision.
Delivery & Operations
7. Drive predictable, high-quality delivery aligned with business objectives - measured by outcomes, not activity.
8. Own 24/7 support coverage and participate actively in on-call rotation, leading incident management by example.
9. Champion small, frequent releases that establish quick feedback loops with stakeholders and users.
10. Balance scope and sequencing to optimise delivery speed while managing technical debt responsibly.
11. Partner across Product, Engineering, and Solutions Architecture to ensure efficient, high-quality product delivery.
People & Culture
12. Manage, coach, and develop a diverse team of Engineers through regular feedback and meaningful 1:1s.
13. Create clear career progression frameworks and conduct performance reviews focused on growth and skill development.
14. Build an environment of psychological safety where team members feel empowered to contribute ideas and raise concerns.
15. Set and track measurable team OKRs that connect individual contributions to business objectives.
Strategic Contributions
16. Establish AI-native engineering practices that accelerate your tribe - demonstrating how tools like Claude Code transform development velocity and creating reusable patterns that scale.
17. Define and track metrics for AI adoption and impact within your team, measuring genuine productivity gains rather than vanity metrics.
18. Build a culture of knowledge sharing through tech talks, documentation, and cross-team collaboration that elevates capability across the organisation.
19. Collaborate with other Engineering Managers on recruitment, onboarding, and process improvements that strengthen engineering culture.
20. Research and introduce emerging technologies that keep your team innovative while maintaining product stability.
21. Drive cross-functional initiatives that improve overall engineering effectiveness across the organisation.
22. Contribute to roadmap development, ensuring balance between feature delivery and technical health.
Key Performance Indicators
Additional KPIs may be defined through PA Media Group's annual Performance Programme.
Engineering & Delivery
23. 40-50% of time on hands-on engineering activities
24. 90%+ cycle goal completion rates
25. 80%+ test coverage on all new code
26. Quarter-over-quarter reduction in security vulnerabilities (measured by Snyk)
27. Measurable AI tool adoption and demonstrated impact on development velocity
Operations
28. 100% out-of-hours support coverage (primary and secondary engineer available)
29. <15-minute incident response time from notification to initiated response
People
30. 100% on-time completion of Performance Programme evidence at mid- and end-of-year reviews
31. Fortnightly 1:1s completed for each team member
32. Open roles filled within 3 months of approval (excluding notice periods)
Essential Skills
33. Expert-level proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript or Java/.NET with proven ability to architect and ship production systems.
34. Strong experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and modern infrastructure patterns including containerization and serverless architectures.
35. AI-native engineering fluency - you're already using AI coding assistants to accelerate your own development and can guide teams in effective adoption.
36. Proven track record managing cross-functional engineering teams and developing high-performing engineers.
37. Experience delivering high-quality products iteratively with a strong understanding of agile methodologies.
38. Excellent ability to communicate technical concepts to technical and non-technical audiences alike.
39. Demonstrated success building stakeholder relationships and driving alignment on priorities.
Desirable Skills
40. Experience with video streaming technologies, OTT platforms, or media/content domains.
41. Knowledge of multitenant SaaS/PaaS architectures and CDN technologies.
42. Background in implementing AI-powered development tools and measuring their impact on team productivity.
43. Experience with observability and monitoring tooling for complex distributed systems.
44. Track record of leading platform transformation from monolithic to modern, composable architectures.
The Opportunity
This is engineering management for people who still love engineering. You won't disappear into meetings and slide decks - you'll stay close to the code, make architectural decisions that matter, and build technical credibility through visible excellence. Your team will look to you as someone who understands their challenges because you're in the trenches with them.
You'll shape how AI transforms engineering at StreamAMG. This isn't about mandating tool adoption from above - it's about demonstrating what's possible, measuring what works, and building practices that scale. You'll have the autonomy to experiment with emerging capabilities and the accountability to deliver results that matter.