Engineering Lead

Blinq is the AI contacts app for people who meet people.

We're on a mission to unlock the world's relationship potential. So much of what's possible in the world is locked inside relationships that never quite happen. A missed conversation, a forgotten follow-up, the right person at the wrong time. We're building so those chances aren't left to chance.

What started as the world's #1 digital business card is now used by 4 million professionals and at 93% of the Fortune 500. We've raised $45m+ from Blackbird, Square Peg, HubSpot Ventures, and Touring Capital.

Learn more: https://blinq.me/

We've all joined Blinq to find out how good we really are. That shows up in how we work:

• We are professional optimists. We think what's possible first and let constraints come second.
• We hold an insanely high talent bar. A players only.
• We are obsessed with craft. The details are the thing, not the polish on top of it.
• We are truth obsessed. We say what's true even when it's uncomfortable, and we have the courage to pursue contrarian but correct bets.
• We do more with less. Calculated frugality and beautiful simplicity guide how we build.
• We are all here to genuinely do our life's best work.

This is a hands-on engineering leadership role combining people management, technical direction and delivery. You’ll work closely with engineers to set clear priorities, make sound technical decisions and turn ambitious goals into reliable products.

You’ll bring a strong platform engineering background and understand how infrastructure, tooling and developer experience affect a team’s ability to move quickly. You can identify where complexity is slowing people down and help the team make practical improvements.

You’ll also drive the effective use of AI across engineering, establishing ways of working that improve delivery speed, code quality and team effectiveness, with evidence that they’re making a difference.

We’re looking for someone who has already led engineering teams as an Engineering Manager, Senior Engineering Manager or Engineering Director, and enjoys staying close to the people and the work.

Our engineering team works in squads, with squad leads guiding day-to-day priorities and delivery. All engineers report to the Engineering Lead, with fortnightly 1:1s providing a consistent approach to feedback, development and support across the team. This gives squads ownership of their work while ensuring every engineer has clear expectations and someone invested in their growth.

We take a player-coach approach to leadership. You’ll lead through coaching, context and clear direction, while staying close enough to the work to contribute meaningfully. That means getting involved in technical decisions, working through problems with engineers and rolling up your sleeves when the team needs it.

You’ll partner closely with squad leads to strengthen their leadership, remove blockers and build shared engineering practices. Your role is to help squads succeed, connect what’s happening across the team and keep improving how we build together.

• Run fortnightly 1:1s that provide meaningful feedback, support development and keep expectations clear.

• Coach engineers and squad leads, helping them grow their skills, judgment and ownership.

• Build consistency in engineering standards, performance expectations and career development across squads.

• Create a culture grounded in curiosity, accountability and honest conversations.

• Support hiring and onboarding as the team grows.

• Partner with squad leads to translate business and product priorities into focused, achievable engineering plans.

• Work with product, design and engineering leaders to balance customer outcomes, delivery speed and technical investment.

• Stay involved in technical design and code reviews, helping engineers work through complex decisions.

• Identify dependencies and remove blockers across squads.

• Improve delivery predictability while keeping room for iteration and learning.

• Guide improvements to infrastructure, CI/CD, observability, reliability and internal tooling.

• Identify friction in development workflows and prioritise changes that help engineers build, test and release more effectively.

• Help the team manage technical debt and platform complexity as the business scales.

• Build reliability, security and operational ownership into everyday engineering work.

• Identify opportunities to use AI across development, testing, code review, documentation and operational workflows.

• Help engineers adopt effective AI tools and practices through coaching, experimentation and shared learning.

• Establish clear expectations for reviewing and validating AI-generated work, including quality, security and maintainability.

• Measure whether changes reduce repetitive work, shorten feedback loops and improve delivery outcomes.

• Apply judgment about where AI adds value and where human understanding and ownership are essential.

• Previous experience as an Engineering Manager, Senior Engineering Manager or Engineering Director, with direct responsibility for people management, team performance and delivery.

• A track record of developing engineers, coaching technical leaders and building accountable, effective teams.

• A strong platform engineering background, with direct experience improving infrastructure, developer tooling or engineering workflows.

• Experience in a startup or scale-up, where you’ve helped teams and systems evolve through growth.

• The technical credibility to challenge assumptions, guide architectural decisions and get hands-on when needed.

• Practical experience introducing AI into engineering workflows, helping teams adopt it and demonstrating improvements in how they work.

• A clear view on how to measure engineering effectiveness beyond activity metrics or the volume of code produced.

• Strong prioritisation skills and the ability to connect technical work to customer and business needs.

• A pragmatic approach to balancing speed, quality and long-term maintainability.

• Clear communication and a willingness to have direct, constructive conversations.

• Engineers have clear priorities, consistent feedback and meaningful development opportunities.

• Squad leads feel supported and empowered to guide delivery.

• Teams deliver consistently and make thoughtful technical trade-offs.

• Platform improvements reduce friction and make releases easier and more reliable.

• AI becomes a useful part of everyday engineering, with measurable improvements in effectiveness.

• Engineering quality and reliability keep pace with Blinq’s growth.

• Equity and ownership. We're building something massive and we want you to share in the upside. Genuinely.
• Competitive salary and a real growth path. As Blinq grows, your role and compensation grow with it.
• Time to switch off. 20 days of annual leave plus a flexible policy for everything life throws at you beyond that.
• Good times, often. Team lunches, padel, games nights, Barry's sessions. We like hanging out and it shows.
• Regular catered lunch at some of our offices, plus an always-stocked snack bar.