Engineering Manager - People & Procurement

Job description

## Engineering Manager – People & Procurement ### About Us The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, globally recognised for its authority, integrity and accuracy, with a mission to deliver quality information and services worldwide. At the FT, curiosity thrives and ambitious thinking is rewarded. Here, you’re given the chance to reach millions, create work that matters and deliver impartial journalism in a polarised world. In our warm, collaborative culture, you’ll connect with a diverse community of experts who support your growth, career aspirations and wellbeing. Your future at the FT will be filled with opportunities that challenge and inspire you. With no fixed path, you’ll discover new skills and forge a career that can take you anywhere. Build a newsworthy career at the FT. ### Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion We believe in the power of unique perspectives and want all voices in our organisation to be heard, respected and valued. A supportive workplace is one where employees feel they can be themselves and operate to their full potential. We are committed to removing barriers for everyone, with a focus on addressing those faced by underrepresented groups. ### The Role People & Procurement sits within Corporate Technology, part of Internal Products, and owns the engineering capabilities supporting workforce management, employee experience, supplier management and procurement across the FT. The technology landscape includes major enterprise platforms such as Workday, alongside other SaaS products, integrations, data flows and supporting capabilities. As **Engineering Manager – People & Procurement**, you will own the engineering, operation and continuous evolution of these technology capabilities. Reporting to the Principal Engineer – Corporate Technology, you will lead the engineering team, combining people leadership with technical direction and clear accountability for the health and performance of the platforms and services it owns. A key focus will be strengthening day-to-day engineering leadership and platform ownership. You will develop capability within the team, establish clear responsibilities and create the conditions for engineers to make effective technical decisions with appropriate autonomy. Working closely with Product and stakeholders across People and Procurement, you will translate business priorities into sustainable engineering plans, balancing new capabilities and organisational change with platform health, technical debt, lifecycle management and operational investment. You will also partner with the Principal Engineer and Architecture to shape the longer-term evolution of the technology landscape. ### Key Responsibilities - Own the engineering, operation and continuous evolution of the technology capabilities supporting People and Procurement, providing clear technical direction across enterprise SaaS platforms, integrations and supporting services. - Lead, support and develop engineers, setting clear expectations and providing coaching, feedback and career development. - Establish clear technical ownership across platforms, integrations and engineering capabilities, building knowledge across the team and reducing key-person dependencies. - Ensure platforms are secure, resilient, scalable, maintainable and appropriately supported, with engineering decisions considering reliability, operability, cost and long-term sustainability. - Maintain visibility of platform health, technical debt, lifecycle risks and significant dependencies, working with the Principal Engineer and Architecture on material technical decisions. - Work with Product to translate business priorities and technology strategy into clear engineering plans, balancing business change, platform improvement, operational work and technical debt. - Own engineering planning and resource allocation, identifying dependencies, risks and constraints early and providing clear visibility of progress and trade-offs. - Identify opportunities to simplify, modernise and improve the People & Procurement technology estate, challenging unnecessary customisation and complexity where more sustainable approaches are available. - Ensure platform upgrades, new capabilities and significant changes are introduced safely and sustainably, taking account of vendor roadmaps and longer-term lifecycle considerations. - Ensure the team understands and owns the integrations and data flows connecting People & Procurement platforms with the wider FT technology estate. - Own operational performance and establish effective approaches to observability, incident and problem management, change management, resilience, disaster recovery and business continuity. - Ensure relevant security, privacy, data governance, compliance and technology standards are met, with material risks understood and appropriately managed. - Manage technical relationships with platform vendors, implementation partners and specialist service providers while maintaining clear internal engineering ownership and capability. - Build strong relationships with Product and stakeholders across People and Procurement, translating priorities into clear engineering implications, options and trade-offs. - Partner with Architecture, Security, Integration & Engineering Services and other Corporate Technology teams on decisions and initiatives that cross platform or organisational boundaries. ### Required Skills and Experience - Significant experience leading engineering teams responsible for complex, business-critical technology. - Strong experience with enterprise SaaS platforms and their wider technology ecosystems. - Experience providing both people leadership and technical leadership, including developing engineering capability and strengthening technical ownership within teams. - Strong understanding of enterprise platform engineering, including integrations, APIs, data flows and system dependencies. - Experience owning technology across its lifecycle, from change and delivery through production operation and continuous improvement. - Strong understanding of reliability, security, privacy, observability, operational risk and technology lifecycle management. - Experience translating business priorities into engineering plans and balancing feature delivery with platform health and technical investment. - Experience leading technical decisions involving enterprise SaaS platforms, integrations and supporting services. - Experience working with vendors, implementation partners or managed service providers while maintaining internal technical ownership. - Experience identifying and addressing technical debt, platform lifecycle concerns and key-person dependencies. - Ability to communicate complex technical considerations and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Experience collaborating effectively with senior engineers, architects, Product Managers and other engineering leaders. ### Desirable - Experience with People, HCM, Procurement or comparable enterprise platforms. - Experience with Workday or a similar HCM platform. - Experience working with People, Procurement or other complex enterprise business domains. - Experience of significant enterprise platform transformation, implementation or modernisation. ### What's in it for You? Our benefits vary by location but we are committed to providing best-in-class perks across all our offices. These include generous annual leave, medical cover, inclusive parental leave packages, subsidised gym memberships and opportunities to give back to the community. Full details of our benefits are available here. We currently operate a hybrid model which requires staff to work onsite 50% of the time, subject to role requirements & regular review. While flexible working requests will be considered, not all patterns are suitable for all roles. We believe this balanced approach supports flexibility and protects our culture, making collaboration and communication easier, building stronger relationships and team cohesion, and supporting peer learning. We reserve discretion on reasonable notice to change this approach either generally or for specific individuals or teams. ### Accessibility We are a disability confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory. Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments/personalisation as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements or have any questions, email [talent@ft.com](mailto:talent@ft.com) and a member of our team will be happy to help. ### Further Information At the FT, we embrace innovation and the use of technology and appreciate that individuals may leverage AI tools as part of their job application process. Whilst we are happy for you to use AI to assist with your application, it is essential that all information provided is authentic and accurately represents your skills, experience, and qualifications. Candidates should be aware that the use of AI throughout the application process may be monitored to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process for all. Please beware of fraudulent job postings and offers claiming to be from the Financial Times. All legitimate opportunities will direct you to apply through the official Financial Times careers site, and the FT will never ask for financial information, payments, or referrals to third parties during the hiring process. If you have any concerns about the legitimacy of a job posting or suspect any scam activity, please contact [talent@ft.com](mailto:talent@ft.com).