Engineering Manager

About Us

At the National Energy System Operator (NESO), we play a vital role in tackling climate change and securing Great Britain's energy future. We already operate the world's fastest decarbonising electricity system and are working towards our ambition to run it carbon‑free for a short period this year – provided the market supplies electricity exclusively from renewable sources. Alongside this, we provide expert advice to government on how to deliver a clean power system by 2030.

In autumn 2024, the Electricity System Operator (ESO) transitioned to become NESO – an independent, expert public corporation with a whole‑system view across electricity, gas, and hydrogen. NESO operates independently and transparently, always acting in the best interests of all energy users. Licensed and regulated by Ofgem, we make impartial decisions that balance sustainability, affordability and security. Our organisation is fully independent from government, the regulator and all commercial interests, with a clear focus on system‑wide benefit, long term thinking and public value.

The time to deliver is now. Join the energy transformation and help shape the future. Your energy. Our future. Together.

About The Role

The Engineering Managers for OBP will be responsible for owning and advancing the engineering practice within one of the core product areas in the Balancing Transformation programme. This role is suited to an engineering leader with deep hands‑on experience, strong architectural awareness, and proven capability operating in multi‑vendor delivery environments. You will guide engineering excellence, ensure high‑quality product delivery, and manage cross‑functional engineering teams—including vendor engineers—within a complex, high‑performing ecosystem. Your leadership will directly influence product reliability, delivery velocity, engineering culture, and long‑term technical strategy. This role can be based from Wokingham, and we continue to offer hybrid working from office and home. We are open to full time and part time applicants, as well as flexible working arrangements.

Key Accountabilities

• Own and evolve the engineering practice for a defined OBP product area within the Balancing Transformation Programme.
• Provide strong technical leadership across distributed, multi‑vendor engineering teams.
• Define and uphold engineering standards, development guardrails, reusable patterns, and microservice best practices.
• Translate architectural direction into actionable engineering plans and ensure high‑quality, production‑ready delivery.
• Drive improvements in test automation, CI/CD, observability, and DevOps maturity.
• Ensure clear documentation and remediation planning for technical debt.
• Proactively manage engineering risks, integration dependencies, and quality across internal and vendor teams.
• Partner with Product Managers, Solution Architects, Delivery Managers, and UX to shape product delivery and technical roadmap.
• Grow and empower engineering leads by providing frameworks, coaching, and technical direction that enables them to challenge and uplift their squads.

About You

• Strong software engineering background with hands‑on experience in microservices or distributed system architectures.
• End‑to‑end engineering proficiency including CI/CD pipelines, DevOps tooling, automated testing, observability, and operational readiness.
• Deep expertise in one of the following technical areas:
• Data Science or Optimisation / Planning Models
• Real‑time or event‑driven systems
• Transactional systems
• Responsive front‑end engineering and modern UI frameworks
• Demonstrated ability to drive delivery, navigate ambiguity, and make pragmatic engineering decisions.
• Strong leadership and people management skills with experience mentoring engineering leads and multi‑vendor teams.
• Ability to rapidly understand business context, product domain, and complex problem statements, and translate them into engineering direction.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to set expectations, challenge constructively, and strengthen team culture.

Desirable Skills

• Experience working in highly regulated, mission‑critical, or real‑time operational environments.
• Knowledge of power systems, Balancing Mechanism, or energy industry domains.
• Familiarity with cloud‑native architectures, event streaming, or large‑scale data platforms.
• Background in designing or supporting optimisation engines, forecasting models, or decision‑support tools.
• Prior experience improving engineering maturity across multiple delivery partners.

What You'll Get

A competitive salary of £70,000 - £80,000 dependent on experience and capability. As well as your base salary, NESO's core benefits include a bonus based on company performance, 26 days annual leave as standard, a competitive contributory pension scheme where we will double match your contribution to a maximum company contribution of 12%, and annual enrollment to the NESO Savings Plan – when you save between £20 and £500 a month from your take‑home pay, we will pay a 50% matching contribution.

Benefits

NESO's flexible benefits programme provides you with more flexibility around your health, lifestyle and protection benefits; here are just a few available:

• Flexible Bank Holidays & Holiday Trading
• Additional Birthday Day Off
• Cycle to Work Scheme, Retail & Gym Discounts
• Private Medical Insurance, Critical Illness Insurance & Personal Accident Insurance

More Information

This role closes at 23:59 on the date displayed at the top of this advert. We encourage you to submit your application as early as possible. We are committed to building a workforce that represents the communities we serve, and a working environment in which each individual feels valued, respected, fairly treated, and able to reach their full potential. If this role sparks your interest but you're not sure you tick every box, we still want to hear from you.

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