Software Engineering Manager

Locations: London, Bristol, Cambridge

We are looking for a Software Engineering Manager to join our IT team.

This is not just a software development role it s an opportunity to drive real change in the legal sector, leading the team that will help us become a market-leading, next-generation law firm.

You will lead engineers across multiple teams, raising the bar on engineering practice and accelerating the firm s ability to deliver high-quality solutions. You will combine hands-on technical leadership with people leadership, creating clarity on standards, architecture, and delivery approach while enabling teams to move quickly and safely in a regulated, confidentiality-driven environment.

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. We recognise that women and other marginalised groups are often underrepresented in the legal technology sector, and we actively encourage applications from all genders and backgrounds.

What will you do:

• Lead and develop engineering teams: Provide clear technical and people leadership to engineers across multiple teams/scrums. Coach, mentor, and grow capability, creating a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and high standards.
• Set and evangelise engineering standards: Define, socialise, and uphold pragmatic engineering practices (e.g., coding standards, testing strategy, code review, branching, CI/CD, observability, incident management, documentation). Ensure consistency while allowing appropriate autonomy.
• Accelerate delivery while improving quality: Improve throughput and predictability by tackling bottlenecks in delivery (requirements clarity, environment stability, pipeline performance, test automation, release management). Balance pace with maintainability and operational excellence.
• Own technical direction and architectural coherence: Guide solution architecture and technical decision-making across products, ensuring scalable and secure patterns are applied consistently particularly for AI-enabled document and data solutions.
• Champion DevOps and automation: Strengthen Azure DevOps practices, CI/CD maturity, deployment safety, environment management, and developer experience. Drive measurable improvements in release frequency, change failure rate, and time-to-restore.
• Enable modern front-end and full-stack delivery: Support teams building React/JavaScript/HTML solutions, ensuring solid engineering discipline, performance, accessibility, and maintainable component patterns.
• Build capability in AI/LLM engineering: Help teams adopt effective patterns for GenAI solutions (e.g., RAG, document processing pipelines, evaluation and monitoring, prompt and tool orchestration, guardrails, and responsible use).
• Operate confidently in a legal/regulated environment: Ensure solutions meet expectations for confidentiality, privacy, security, auditability, and appropriate governance. Partner with risk, compliance, and information security teams to deliver safely.
• Influence and drive change: Work effectively in a traditionally change-resistant environment building coalitions, bringing stakeholders with you, and introducing modern delivery approaches in a way that is sustainable and adopted (not just mandated ).
• Recruit and retain talent: Support hiring, onboarding, performance management, and capability planning. Build high-performing teams with the right balance of skills across engineering, cloud, data, and AI.
• Collaborate with Product, Legal SMEs, and stakeholders: Translate business outcomes into technical plans; shape roadmaps; manage trade-offs; and maintain transparency on risks, dependencies, and delivery timelines.
• Drive cloud and platform excellence: Provide leadership across Azure-based delivery, including (as relevant) App Services, storage (Blob), Key Vault, networking, container platforms, identity (Entra ID), and integration patterns. Ensure infrastructure, security, and cost management are engineered-in, not bolted-on.

What we are looking for:

• Proven experience leading engineers across multiple teams in a complex organisation.
• Demonstrable ability to improve engineering performance through standards, coaching, and pragmatic governance.
• Comfortable with Agile/Scrum/Kanban and able to apply them appropriately in corporate environments.
• Hands-on technical credibility.
• Solid experience with: Microsoft Azure and cloud-native patterns; CI/CD implementation; Entra ID and identity-driven security patterns; Containers and modern deployment approaches; and React, JavaScript, HTML/CSS.
• Working knowledge of non-Azure platforms and approaches (e.g., AWS, GCP, Vercel, Cloudflare).
• Experience delivering AI-enabled products.
• Familiarity with practical GenAI engineering patterns (e.g., RAG, evaluation frameworks, grounding, and monitoring).
• Awareness of responsible AI considerations (risk controls, privacy, data handling, model limitations).
• Strong appreciation of security, privacy, and governance.
• Pragmatic, outcome-focused, and comfortable making trade-offs explicit.
• High standards, low ego: collaborative, resilient, and willing to challenge poor practice constructively.

Career Level:

The career level assigned to this role is level 4. The career level framework provides a formal structure for the business services functions at the firm. The framework, which ranges from level 1 to level 7, clearly defines the responsibilities, skills and competencies required at each level.

Here at Simmons & Simmons:

At Simmons, we are proud of our collaborative, open and non-hierarchical culture, where everyone is treated with respect and dignity and the wellbeing of our people is paramount. Our dynamic minds work as one integrated team, partnering with leading organisations on inspirational and thought-provoking projects that matter. From day one, irrespective of job title, qualification or background, everyone s voice is heard, and you are encouraged to have an enquiring mind and share ideas that drive the firm forward. Through innovative learning and development opportunities, you will have a platform to excel, exceed your career ambitions, and achieve things you never thought possible.

Some key information:

• We offer a competitive package including bonuses dependant on role/level, private medical insurance and pension contribution.
• Our global skills academy provides our people, regardless of their role and location, with excellent learning opportunities (including live workshops, podcasts, short videos and practical learning experiences).
• We have adopted a hybrid working approach with a requirement for a minimum of three days in the office with flexibility dependant on role/team/client demands.
• We are proud to rank as a Times Top 50 Employer for Gender Equality, a Stonewall Top Global Employer, and a Top 75 Employer for Social Mobility.
• We have a range of social and sports committees, summer and winter parties and monthly get togethers.
• We have a range of diversity networks to connect people and celebrate our differences which is integral to our inclusive culture.
• All UK offices have their own artwork collections including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin pieces in the London office. We have a long-standing history in supporting the art community especially up-and-coming artists.
• We have recently introduced a Strategic Advisory Council which is a mix of associates and business services who will propose strategic initiatives that align with our firm's mission and support the delivery of our business plan, shaping the future of our next-generation law firm.
• Our in-house generative AI tool, Percy, won the Innovation in Automation and AI Tools category at the 2024 FT Innovative Lawyers Europe Awards. This achievement highlights our commitment to technological innovation and client service.
• We have been commended in The Times Best Law Firms 2026 across three categories: construction, employment, and intellectual property. Our profile is highly positive, highlighting our sector specialisms and notable case and transactional work.

Equal opportunities:

We are committed to fostering equality, diversity and inclusion within our firm and to ensuring equal employment opportunities. We believe that this commitment creates a vibrant and rewarding work environment. We are therefore committed to:

• Upholding equal opportunities, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender reassignment, gender identity, marital status, or pregnancy, including maternity and paternity. This commitment extends to addressing any instances of perceived or associative discrimination and harassment. We also ensure fair treatment during recruitment and selection processes for those who are serving or have served in the armed forces, along with their families.
• Accommodating requests for flexible working arrangements whenever possible. We encourage you to discuss your needs with us if this is something you require.
• Making our roles accessible to individuals with diverse abilities. If you need any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know so we can meet your needs.
• We offer a range of employee networks to support our colleagues. More information about these networks can be found in the D&I Information booklet that candidates are sent when invited to interview.

We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every single requirement . click apply for full job details