Job Description

AI Engineering Manager

Department: Development

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Warwick

Who are we?

At Bright, we build software that accountants, payroll professionals, and practice managers rely on every day. Our engineering teams are shipping AI-powered features into production right now, not experimenting, not planning, building.

We're brilliant people creating brilliant software! Join us in our mission to create brilliant software that empowers businesses to reach new heights. You’ll lead three engineering squads building AI-first features into our SaaS products. This means owning both the people and the projects: coaching engineers, running delivery, and making sure the technical direction is sound. Your teams include fast-moving, highly skilled developers who are deep in AI. You need to be a credible technical partner to them, not just a process manager who delegates the hard questions.

This role sits at the intersection of hands-on technical leadership and people management. You’ll be reviewing architectural decisions, challenging implementation choices, and pushing AI-first thinking across development and QA workflows while also running 1:1s, growing careers, and keeping delivery on track.

What Will You Do?

• Lead three engineering squads delivering AI-powered features into our SaaS products for accountancy, payroll, and practice management.
• Provide genuine technical guidance to your squads not just repeat what your team tells you.
• Champion AI-first development: ensure developers and QAs are using AI tools effectively as part of their daily workflows.
• Run agile delivery with a focus on outcomes, not ceremonies.
• Coach, mentor, and grow engineers through structured 1:1s, career development, and honest feedback.
• Collaborate with product to translate business requirements into well-scoped technical work.
• Drive continuous improvement in how we build, test, and ship software.
• Hire well. You’ll help us find and onboard engineers who raise our bar.
• Communicate delivery status, risks, and technical trade-offs to stakeholders clearly and without surprises.

What We Need From You

Must Haves

• You’ve been a software engineer. Not a project manager who worked near engineers, someone who has written production code and understands what it takes to build great products.
• You’ve managed engineering teams and can point to teams you’ve built, grown, or turned around.
• You understand AI beyond the surface. You can explain how an LLM works, distinguish RAG from fine-tuning, and evaluate an architecture proposal that includes AI without needing someone to translate it for you.
• You have genuine curiosity about AI. You experiment with tools and models, follow the field, and build things using AI or containing it. Our engineers live in this space. You need to be a credible conversational partner.
• You know what great agile software development looks like and have a track record of delivering quality software, preferably SaaS or e-commerce.
• You can hold the room with technically strong engineers. You’ll earn respect through competence, not title.

Preferred

• Experience with .NET, C#, JavaScript or Azure, our primary stack. Our engineers are polyglot and we use technologies beyond these, but familiarity with some of our core stack is useful.
• Hands-on experience building AI-powered features, not just adopting AI developer tools.
• Experience managing multiple teams simultaneously.
• SaaS product development background.
• Familiarity with accountancy, payroll, HR, or practice management software.

This is not a role for someone who manages entirely by delegation and trusts the team to handle all the technical decisions. You need to be in the detail enough to know when a decision is good and when it isn’t. Equally, this isn’t a principal engineer role, you’ll not be cutting code and you’ll spend more time on people and delivery than on technical matters.