Engineering Manager – Commercial Technology

Title: Engineering Manager – Commercial Technology Location: Sofia

About Us

The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, globally recognised for its authority, integrity and accuracy, with a mission to deliver quality information and services worldwide.

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About you

You are an experienced engineering leader with a strong software engineering background and a track record of leading teams responsible for business-critical products and platforms.

You combine strong people leadership with credible technical judgement. You are comfortable setting direction, helping teams make complex engineering decisions and remaining close enough to the technology to understand the health, risks and opportunities within the platforms you own.

You understand that engineering leadership is about more than delivery. You think about the long-term health of technology: architecture, reliability, security, scalability, developer experience, operational performance and the ability of teams to evolve their systems sustainably.

You are comfortable working closely with Product and business stakeholders, translating priorities into engineering plans and making thoughtful trade-offs between new capabilities, technical investment and operational needs.

You are also motivated by developing people and teams. You create clear ownership, coach engineers, build capability and create an environment where people can challenge, learn and take increasing responsibility.

About the team

Commercial Technology is part of the Internal Products group within FT Product & Technology. We are a multidisciplinary group of Engineers, Product Managers and Business Analysts responsible for building and operating the technology platforms that support the FT’s commercial capabilities across Marketing, Sales, Service and Commercial Data.

We are undertaking a significant evolution of our commercial technology landscape, bringing these capabilities together around a more connected Salesforce platform and establishing a strong foundation for how our commercial teams engage with customers and use data.

In Marketing & Commercial Data, we are evolving our marketing technology landscape towards Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next and Data 360, while continuing to operate and transition from established platforms including Bloomreach, Marketo and Legacy Salesforce Marketing Cloud products for B2B & B2C marketing.

In Sales & Service, we are consolidating a number of Salesforce CRM orgs with their associated processes and procedures into a leaner Commercial Technology estate, utilising data available to us via Data 360, into a setup that aligns with the FT’s future commercial capabilities and setup.
In Commercial Platform, we are establishing a centre of excellence at the heart of the commercial workflow, tasked with ensuring the security, health and viability of our day-to-day commercial operation and providing a primary support route for our business users
The Engineering Manager will lead one of the engineering teams within Commercial Technology, working closely with Product, Senior Engineers, other Engineering Managers and the wider Commercial Technology leadership team.

Our Technology

Our Commercial Technology landscape is evolving. Technologies and platforms within or interacting with Marketing & Commercial Data include:

• Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next (Advanced Edition)
• Salesforce Data 360
• Salesforce Sales & Service Cloud
• Sales Collaboration & Enablement Tooling
• Bloomreach
• Marketo
• JavaScript / TypeScript
• APIs and integration technologies
• AWS Technologies
• Data platforms and integrations
• CI/CD pipelines and developer tooling
• GitHub
• Monitoring and observability tooling
• Jira & Confluence

You do not need experience with all of these technologies to apply. We are particularly interested in engineering leaders who can lead teams through technology change and help engineers develop the skills required for an evolving platform.

What you’ll work on

As Engineering Manager within Commercial Technology, you will lead the engineering team responsible for the delivery, performance and continuous evolution of the FT’s Marketing & Commercial Data capability.
You will be accountable for ensuring the engineering team is effectively organised, supported and resourced to deliver business outcomes. This includes leading delivery and planning, managing engineering capacity and priorities, building strong relationships with Product, Programme and business stakeholders, and ensuring risks, dependencies and resource constraints are understood and actively managed.

You will be leading a team through a significant transformation of the FT's commercial technology landscape, balancing the delivery of new capabilities with the operational health of existing platforms, the development of engineering capability and the longer-term evolution of the Commercial Technology estate.

You will remain close to the technology and provide credible engineering leadership. You will support technical decision-making, challenge approaches where appropriate and ensure the team understands the architecture, risks and operational health of the systems it owns.

You will also work with Principal Engineers and other senior technical leaders on decisions that extend beyond your team's boundaries, ensuring local engineering decisions contribute to a coherent and sustainable Commercial Technology landscape.

You will report to the Principal Engineer for the Commercial Technology domain.

Your responsibilities will include

Engineering Delivery & Planning

• Own engineering delivery across the Marketing & Commercial Data capability, ensuring agreed business outcomes are delivered effectively and sustainably.
• Work with Product, Programme, the Technical Lead and wider Commercial Technology leadership to shape priorities, roadmaps and achievable delivery plans.
• Own the allocation of engineering capacity, balancing delivery commitments with operational needs, technical improvement, team capacity and longer-term capability development.
• Identify and actively manage delivery risks, dependencies, resource constraints and capability gaps, escalating where necessary.
• Continuously improve engineering processes, development workflows, documentation and ways of working.

People Leadership & Team Health

• Leading, supporting and developing engineers, admins and specialists across Marketing Technology and Commercial Data through regular 1:1s, coaching, feedback and career development.
• Setting clear expectations for individual and team performance
• Create an inclusive, supportive and psychologically safe environment, building a strong engineering culture based on ownership, collaboration, continuous learning and shared accountability.
• Manage team capacity and sustainable workloads, supporting the wellbeing, effectiveness and long-term development of the team.
• Identify skills and capability gaps and work with engineers and wider engineering leadership to develop the capabilities required for our future platform.
• Lead recruitment, onboarding and organisational change within the capability, ensuring engineers are supported through changes to technology, roles and ways of working.

Technical Leadership & Collaboration

• Partner closely with the Technical Lead – Marketing & Commercial Data, Together you will provide the complementary people, delivery and technical leadership required to operate and evolve our Marketing & Commercial Data capability successfully.
• Own the organisational conditions required to execute the technical strategy, ensuring teams have the skills, capacity and ways of working required to deliver it successfully.
• Contribute to technical discussions and decisions while maintaining clear accountability with the Technical Lead for technical direction, architecture, engineering standards and solution design.
• Build strong relationships with Product, Programme, business stakeholders and other technology teams, providing clear visibility of delivery, capacity, operational health, risks and dependencies.
• Work closely with Engineering Managers and Technical Leads across Commercial Technology to coordinate shared priorities, dependencies and engineering practices.
• Work effectively with external technology partners and delivery vendors where required, ensuring they integrate successfully with FT engineering teams and delivery practices.
• Represent the needs, constraints and capabilities of the engineering team in programme, planning and stakeholder discussions.

Operational Readiness & Engineering Excellence

• Be accountable for ensuring Marketing & Commercial Data capabilities are operationally ready, supportable and sustainable throughout their lifecycle.
• Ensure operational requirements are built into delivery, including observability, monitoring, resilience, documentation, support models, knowledge transfer and clear ownership.
• Work closely with the Commercial Platform team to ensure new and changed capabilities can be effectively supported within the wider Commercial Technology operating model.
• Ensure the team remains engaged in the ongoing health of the capabilities it owns, providing specialist domain or engineering expertise when required.
• Lead the Marketing & Commercial Data team's response to incidents affecting capabilities it owns, working within the Commercial Technology incident-management model led by Commercial Platform.
• Ensure operational health, capability risks, technical debt and engineering improvements are visible and prioritised alongside product and programme delivery.
• Ensure learning from incidents, operational issues and business-user feedback is incorporated into future delivery and continuous improvement.

Change & Platform Evolution

• Lead the engineering team through the evolution of the FT’s Marketing & Commercial Data technology landscape.
• Support the transition from legacy marketing platforms, including Bloomreach and Marketo, towards the FT’s strategic Salesforce-based marketing and data capabilities.
• Own the people, skills and team structure required to support the transition to the future Marketing & Commercial Data platform, ensuring the capability can be sustainably owned beyond programme delivery.
• Work with the Technical Lead, Commercial Platform and wider Commercial Technology leadership to introduce platform changes sustainably and maintain operational continuity.

Leadership experience we’re looking for

• Experience managing or leading software engineers within a collaborative engineering environment.
• Strong coaching, feedback and people-development skills, with experience helping engineers progress in their careers.
• Experience leading engineering delivery across complex platforms or products.
• Experience balancing strategic programme delivery with operational responsibilities and longer-term engineering priorities.
• Strong understanding of engineering practices associated with secure, resilient and scalable production systems.
• Experience supporting teams responsible for operating and continuously improving business-critical technology.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience working in partnership with senior technical leaders, architects or Technical Leads.
• Comfortable operating across Product, Engineering, Data, Programme and business stakeholders.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, organisational change and evolving priorities.
• Experience leading teams through significant platform or technology transformation would be beneficial.
• Experience with Salesforce, marketing technology, customer data platforms or enterprise SaaS ecosystems would be beneficial, but is not essential.

Characteristics we value

• A people-first approach to engineering leadership.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills.
• Empathy, emotional intelligence and a commitment to developing others.
• A strong sense of ownership and accountability for outcomes.
• Pragmatism and sound judgement when balancing business, people and engineering needs.
• The ability to create clarity and structure in complex or ambiguous environments.
• Curiosity and a willingness to continuously learn.
• An appreciation for strong engineering practices, operational excellence and sustainable technology.
• Calmness under pressure and the ability to lead teams through challenging situations.
• A collaborative mindset and willingness to work across organisational and technology boundaries.
• An interest in how technology and data can enable better customer experiences and commercial outcomes.

What’s in it for you? Our benefits

• Annual bonus scheme
• 25 days paid leave
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program
• Life Insurance
• Enhanced Parental Leave policy
• Food Allowance
• Multisport Card
• Both in house and external training programs
• Your own training dedicated budget (for conferences, courses etc.)

We currently operate a hybrid model which requires staff to work onsite 50% of the time, subject to role requirements & regular review. While flexible working requests will be considered, not all patterns are suitable for all roles. We believe this balanced approach supports flexibility and protects our culture, making collaboration and communication easier, building stronger relationships and team cohesion, and supporting peer learning.  We reserve discretion on reasonable notice to change this approach either generally or for specific individuals or teams.

Accessibility

We are a disability confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory.

Further information

At the FT, we embrace innovation and the use of technology and appreciate that individuals may leverage AI tools as part of their job application process. Whilst we are happy for you to use AI to assist with your application, it is essential that all information provided is authentic and accurately represents your skills, experience, and qualifications.

Candidates should be aware that the use of AI throughout the application process may be monitored to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process for all.

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