Engineering manager - Automation

  • Seccl Technology Limited
  • Edinburgh, Midlothian
  • Jan 27, 2026
Full time Engineering

Job Description

Hybrid role to be based in our London, Bath or Edinburgh office.

About us Seccl is the Octopus-owned embedded investment platform that's on a mission to helping more people to invest - and invest well.

We're B-Corp certified with an amazing product-market fit, impressive early traction and the potential to transform an outdated industry, for the better. We've been growing fast and will scale even faster over the next few years.

We're also proud to be part of Octopus, the £multi billion group that's on a mission to breathe new life into broken industries, through companies like Octopus Energy, Octopus Investments and Octopus Money.

Check out the Seccl website for the latest on our products and our mission to shape the future of investments.

The role As an Engineering manager, you'll play a pivotal role in Seccl's next phase of growth. This is a genuinely cross-company role, focused on solving realoperational and product problems wherever they exist. You'll work closely with teams across the business to understand complex processes and identify where automation and AI can remove friction, reduce risk, and improve outcomes.

The team's focus is on AI-enabled automation: designing and delivering solutions that make day-to-day work measurably easier, faster, and safer. This includes applying automation, data, and AI capabilities in a pragmatic, responsible way: augmenting human decision-making, improving consistency, and strengthening control in critical workflows.

The emphasis is on production-ready solutions with real impact, not experimentation for its own sake. Success in this role comes from delivering meaningful operational improvement, underpinned by strong engineering discipline, governance, and resilience.

This is a leadership role with both delivery and growth accountability.

You'll work closely with Product, Compliance, and domain engineering teams, alongside leaders across the wider business, to identify and address the operational and technical challenges that constrain Seccl's growth. Your leadership will directly influence how automation and AI are used across the organisation to improve efficiency, strengthen control, and enable Seccl to scale safely as the platform and customer base continue to grow.

This role goes beyond day-to-day squad leadership: you'll help shape the technical direction, operating model, and long-term strategy for automation and AI, influencing how these capabilities are applied across Seccl as the business scales.

The Automation team delivers solutions using a mix of technologies, including cloud services, custom-built integrations, and the Microsoft Power Platform. The team includes experienced Power Platform engineers, and part of this role is to ensure these capabilities are applied thoughtfully, with appropriate engineering discipline, governance, and integration alongside other technologies where they are a better fit.

Automation in Seccl Automation is a critical enabler of Seccl's growth. As the platform, customer base, and regulatory obligations scale, the ability to automate complex processes safely and intelligently is fundamental to maintaining speed, control, and operational resilience across the business.

This domain spans the full breadth of Seccl - supporting teams across Product, Custody, Accounts, Finance, Operations, and Compliance - and focuses on reducing manual effort, improving consistency, and enabling teams to operate at scale. The scope continues to expand as we tackle increasingly complex workflows, higher transaction volumes, tighter regulatory expectations, and new growth initiatives.

We are investing in this team to ensure automation is applied in a deliberate, production-ready way, with strong engineering discipline and governance. As Engineering Manager for Automation, you'll be a key leader responsible for shaping how automation (including the responsible use of AI where appropriate) is built, adopted, and scaled across the organisation, ensuring it continues to support Seccl's growth ambitions over the next 12 months and beyond.

On a typical day you will be
  • Partnering closely with Product managers, Compliance, and stakeholders to define priorities, plan delivery, and align initiatives with Seccl's commercial, regulatory, and platform goals.
  • Supporting and challenging technical decision making to ensure solutions are scalable, secure, compliant, and well integrated across the wider platform.
  • Remaining hands on where it adds value through design reviews, architectural spikes, prototyping, or unblocking complex delivery challenges.
  • Working closely with Platform engineering and other domain leaders to ensure strong cross squad collaboration and consistency.
  • Owning delivery health across your domain, including production readiness, incident response, and operational excellence.
  • Using metrics and feedback to continuously improve delivery predictability, system reliability, and team effectiveness.
  • Contributing to broader engineering leadership discussions, helping shape how engineering operates at Seccl as we scale.
  • Leading, coaching, and mentoring engineers within the Automation team to foster a culture of high performance, psychological safety, and continuous improvement.
  • Building and evolving a high impact automation squad, shaping team structure, onboarding, and ways of working to support a growing cross company remit.
  • Providing technical leadership and architectural oversight for automation solutions, including workflow orchestration, integrations, data movement, and responsible application of AI where appropriate.
This role's for you if
  • You're an experienced Engineering Manager who has led production teams and is ready to take on a broader, cross company remit with real organisational impact.
  • You have a strong track record of building, coaching, and developing engineers, including shaping ways of working for teams that operate across multiple stakeholders and problem spaces.
  • You're comfortable balancing strategic thinking with hands on execution, and can lead a squad that delivers value across the business rather than within a single product domain.
  • You bring strong communication and stakeholder management skills, and can work effectively with Product, Compliance, and teams across the wider organisation.
  • You're confident working across our tech stack: Node.js, React, MongoDB, AWS, Lambda, Serverless Framework, and JavaScript/TypeScript, and can engage credibly in architectural and technical discussions.
  • You have recent, practical experience working with automation and AI assisted capabilities, and are motivated to continue building and applying these approaches responsibly in production environments.
  • You are confident in Prompt Engineering and verifying that the combination of Prompt + LLM produces acceptable production ready output.
  • You have experience with automation and workflow platforms, and are comfortable onboarding onto new tools and ecosystems. Experience with the Power Platform and its wider ecosystem is desirable, but not required.
  • You're comfortable operating across a mixed technology landscape, integrating automation solutions with APIs, data platforms, and cloud services rather than treating them as isolated tools.
  • You enjoy staying close to the technology and can provide meaningful technical guidance and challenge, without needing to be the primary hands on contributor.
  • You have experience working in regulated or operationally complex environments (such as financial services, fintech, or other compliance heavy domains), and value strong governance, security, and resilience.
  • You care deeply about building automation that delivers real, sustained business value, reducing manual effort, improving consistency, and making complex processes safer and easier to run.
  • You're excited by the opportunity to help shape how automation and AI are used across Seccl as the company continues to grow.
This role isn't for you if
  • You rely on a lot of top down direction.
  • You're not comfortable working in a fast paced environment.
  • You struggle to follow through on ideas.
  • You don't like change.
What's in it for you We offer a generous mix of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including:

A salary up to £110,000 - dependant on experience + reviewed annually

27 days holiday + bank holidays (some can be flexible) + day off on your birthday + three days (full time) per year for Dependant leave

Two volunteering days per year

Option to work abroad for up to six weeks a year

Secclbrate - our recognition programme that offers a mix of flexible rewards including extra pay, additional holiday and increased learning budget

Length of service award - one month paid sabbatical at eight years

6% employer pension contribution, and life assurance

Private medical insurance with AXA Health

Enhanced Parental leave

MacBook and up to £500 home office set up budget

£750 per person learning budget

Health and wellbeing initiatives including free therapy via Wellness Cloud, mental health support via Headspace

Strong financial wellbeing focus including access to Octopus Money, Octopus Share Incentive Plan and will writing offering via Octopus Legacy

Perkbox - Flexi points giving you a range of discounts and perks including free weekly coffee, gym and retail discounts
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