Description
About the Role:
As Senior Engineering Manager, Developer Experience / Head of Developer Experience, you will report directly to the Director of Platform Engineering and be responsible for how every engineer at Tide builds, tests and ships software. You will:
- Own the Developer Experience strategy for Tide, setting the vision and roadmap for developer tooling, CI/CD and the internal platform.
- Lead the design, build and continuous improvement of CI/CD pipelines and developer tooling, reducing friction and lead time across the software delivery lifecycle.
- Define, track and report on DevEx and engineering productivity metrics (e.g. DORA, SPACE), using data to identify bottlenecks and prioritise investment.
- Own and evolve Tide’s service catalogue (Backstage), establishing it as the single source of truth for the ICT Asset Register and driving adoption across engineering.
- Manage the Developer Productivity function, responsible for building and maintaining Java/Spring and Python ‘paved road’ templates that give product teams a fast, secure and consistent way to start new services.
- Own the internally developed libraries for authentication and other common functionality, ensuring they are well documented, kept up to date, and widely adopted across product teams.
- Build, lead and mentor a team of platform, developer experience and developer productivity engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, craftsmanship and continuous improvement.
- Prepare Tide’s engineering platform for agentic development, ensuring our tooling, paved roads and guardrails allow AI coding agents (e.g. Claude Code) to contribute safely and effectively alongside human engineers.
- Define the platform, tooling and operating model for running AI-developed applications in production, covering observability, security, testing and governance for agent-authored code.
- Partner closely with engineering leaders, security and compliance stakeholders across Tide’s product and platform teams to identify friction points and shape the platform roadmap.
What We Are Looking For:
Tide is seeking an experienced Head of Developer Experience to lead our efforts in making our engineers as productive and effective as possible. The ideal candidate will have:
- A proven track record leading Developer Experience, Platform Engineering or DevOps/SRE teams at scale.
- Hands-on experience building and operating CI/CD pipelines and developer tooling in a modern cloud environment.
- Experience with Backstage, or a comparable internal developer portal / service catalogue tool, including rollout and adoption.
- Experience running a developer productivity or paved-road function, including building and maintaining project templates (e.g. Java/Spring, Python) and shared libraries (e.g. authentication, common functionality) used by product teams.
- Working knowledge of engineering productivity frameworks such as DORA metrics or SPACE, and experience using them to drive improvement.
- Familiarity with agentic and AI-assisted development tools (e.g. Claude Code, GitHub Copilot), and a point of view on the guardrails, governance and infrastructure needed to run AI-developed applications safely in production.
- Strong people leadership skills, with a track record of building, growing and developing high-performing engineering teams.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, able to influence engineering leaders across multiple teams and locations.
- Experience in financial services or another regulated, technology-driven scale-up environment is a plus.
What You'll Get In Return:
- Competitive Compensation - competitive salary and share options
- Time Off – Generous annual leave on top of bank holidays.
- Parental Leave – Paid maternity, paternity, and adoption leave to support your family journey.
- Sabbatical – Extended unpaid and paid leave options after completing milestone years with Tide.
- Health Insurance – Private family insurance with additional OPD coverage and top-up options.
- Life & Accident Cover – Comprehensive accidental and life insurance protection.
- Mental Wellbeing – Access to therapy sessions, courses, meditations, and workshops.
- Volunteering & Development Days – Paid days annually for volunteering or personal growth.
- Learning & Development – Annual budget for books, courses, coaching, and more.
- WOO (Work Outside the Office) – Work from abroad for up to 90 days annually.
- Home Office Setup – Contribution towards setting up your home office
- Laptop Ownership – Keep your old laptop and get a new one when it’s time for a replacement.
- Snacks & Meals – Office perks with snacks, coffee, tea, and lunch (location dependent).