Senior Engineering Manager

Studio Graphene is an AI-native digital product studio that designs and builds digital products for ambitious companies around the world. Founded in 2014 and a certified B Corp, we are a team of over 100 designers, engineers, product managers and analysts across our offices in London, Delhi, Lisbon and Geneva.

For this role, Studio Graphene is hiring as the Employer of Record (EOR) for one of our clients. You will be employed by Studio Graphene in India and work as part of the client’s team on their products, with your day-to-day role and responsibilities set out below.

The client is a leading provider of SaaS solutions that empower companies to take payments securely, adhere to strict industry governance, and reduce significant business risks posed by non-compliance and data loss. They are integrated and resold by some of the world’s leading business communications vendors, as well as major payment service providers.

Location: 5 days working from Gurgaon Office

Working hours: 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM

THE OPPORTUNITY: 

This is a new role to manage the client's engineering presence in India. You'll be the first hire in a brand-new office, responsible for building the team while extending the engineering standards and processes already used across the business. Whilst development priorities will be set from the UK, your job is to make sure that the India team can deliver against them reliably, securely and on schedule, and to be the point of accountability for the engineering function in India as it grows. This isn't a hands-on role, and you won't be writing code or making day-to-day architectural calls. However, you'll need enough technical background to know when something isn't right before it reaches architecture review. You'll also carry ultimate responsibility for the quality and compliance of everything your team builds, including PCI DSS evidence.

YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR:

• Hiring for the new India office – working with the UK-based leadership team to define roles, interview, and make the final call for your team.

• Building a strong working culture while keeping it aligned with the existing engineering standards and practices.

• Line managing Team Leads and Tech Leads, including regular 1:1s, coaching and performance feedback.

• Handling HR issues directly, in line with company policy and Indian employment law.

• Making sure there's proper cover during the working day and on call.

• Owning roadmap delivery for the India engineering function, including tracking progress, flagging slippage early, and reporting clearly to the Head of Development.

• Building a close working relationship with the UK-based Product team so priorities translate cleanly into work for your team. 

• Giving leadership a data-backed view of what the team can deliver, including pushing back on scope or timeline when the numbers don't support it.

• Acting as the point of technical and delivery accountability for the engineering function in India.

• Working with UK-based QA, Release Management, DevOps and InfoSec to keep quality, security and release standards consistent.

• Taking ultimate responsibility for your team’s PCI DSS compliance, including evidence collection and presenting to auditors when required.

• Reviewing architecture and technical decisions before they reach the wider review process, and escalating risk early.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU IF YOU:

• Strong hands-on technical background (senior engineer, Tech Lead or similar) before moving into management.

• Experience managing managers - Team Leads, Tech Leads or equivalent, not just individual contributors.

• Experience building or scaling a team or office from an early stage. 

• Comfortable handling HR conversations directly.

• Solid understanding of software development processes and holding teams to them.

• Experience tracking and reporting delivery and roadmap progress to senior stakeholders.

• Confident representing a remote team to leadership based elsewhere. 

• Experience working in a distributed, multi-site engineering organisation. 

• Experience in a DevOps or cloud-native environment.

• Experience of PCI compliance or similarly regulated environments.

NICE TO HAVE:

• Experience with payment gateways, card processing or contact centre technologies.

• Familiarity with Indian employment law and local hiring practices.

IN RETURN WE OFFER:

• A dedicated day off to mark your work anniversary, in addition to your annual leave.

• We take care of your health: a dedicated day off for your annual check-up, with the cost reimbursed. 

• Comprehensive medical insurance cover, including personal accident cover.

• On-site cafe with meals expensed.

• Sponsored learning and development, with regular knowledge-sharing sessions to keep you growing.

• A collaborative, energetic workplace with team events, incentives, and competitions throughout the year. 

• Company goodies and merchandise to keep things fun.

TALK TO US:

If you have any questions or want to find out more, we’d love to hear from you.