Senior Engineering Manager, Grip
More information about location
AI-powered event technology platform built for engagement
Open for applications
AI-powered event technology platform built for engagement
21-100 employees
Open for applications
More information about location
21-100 employees
Company mission
To empower professionals to achieve their networking potential.
Role
Who you are
- We are looking for an engineering leader who is equally comfortable in a 1:1 and a system design review. You combine genuine technical depth with the organisational skills to run a high-performing squad, and the collaborative instincts to work well across a leadership team
- Experience leading and growing software engineering teams, ideally in a high-growth B2B SaaS environment
- Strong hands-on technical background in the Manage stack or similar: TypeScript, Node.js, React, MongoDB, Postgres, AWS
- A track record of delivering complex, production-grade systems with rigour around quality, security, and observability
- Experience working closely with Product and Design to shape initiatives before they reach the squad
- Comfort influencing architectural decisions across squad boundaries, and working alongside Staff/Principal-level engineers
- Genuine excitement about AI-first development — you actively use AI tooling in your own workflow and can credibly lead a team to do the same
What the job involves
- We are hiring a Senior Engineering Manager to lead and grow the Manage Squad — the team responsible for Grip's best-in-class event registration platform, handling complex configurations and integrations, payments, data pipelines, on-site technologies like smart badges and location telemetry, and key backend infrastructure
- As Grip moves increasingly AI-first, this role is critical in ensuring that AI-native thinking shapes how the Manage Squad builds, ships, and evolves its systems
- This is a senior management role that sits at the intersection of people management, technical excellence, and product delivery. Reporting directly to the CPO, you will lead a squad of roughly four direct reports — including 3 senior and 1 mid full-stack engineer — and be accountable for everything the Manage Squad ships: its quality, pace, architecture, and long-term health
- You will work closely with the Engineering Director for the Engage Squad, the Head of Platform, the VP of Engineering Operations. Equally important is your partnership with the Product Manager and Designer for the Manage domain — reviewing upcoming product initiatives, assessing feasibility, and balancing feature delivery with platform improvements
- The Manage Squad is building a best-in-class event registration platform. The team deals with complex event configurations and third-party integrations, handles payments and financial data, feeds Grip's core data pipelines and insights, and works on exciting on-site technologies including smart badges and location telemetry
- Our core stack includes TypeScript (Node.js, React), MongoDB & Postgres. We use AWS for our cloud services and our infrastructure is managed with Kubernetes and Terraform. We test with Jest and Cypress, and monitor our systems with Prometheus, Grafana and Sentry
- We embrace building with AI to help us deliver faster and better, and we're looking for someone who is genuinely excited by this new era of software development and the opportunities it brings. At Grip, AI is not an afterthought — it is central to how we build, how we ship, and how we think about the future of our platform
- Lead, mentor and grow a team of approximately four engineers, including a Principal Engineer and full-stack engineers
- Run effective 1:1s, career conversations, and performance reviews using Grip's progression framework
- Foster a culture of psychological safety, high standards, and continuous improvement
- Own hiring and onboarding for the Manage Squad in partnership with Engineering leadership
- Partner closely with the Product Manager and Designer to review upcoming initiatives, assess feasibility, and surface technical risks early
- Own the squad's delivery cadence — sprint planning, prioritisation, and release quality
- Balance feature delivery with ongoing investment in platform health: tech debt, refactoring, security, and governance
- Take ownership of features from start to finish using agile methodologies, delivering with feature flags, tests, and observability
- Champion high-quality technical communications: proposals, specs, testing reports, and release planning
- Drive AI-first ways of working within the squad — embedding AI tooling into development workflows, code review, testing, and delivery
- Drive architectural consistency, code quality, and engineering best practice within the Manage Squad
- Work closely with the Head of Platform to align Manage's architecture with the wider platform vision
- Identify and lead progressive modernisation of legacy systems — migrating and consolidating without disrupting delivery
- Deliver features with security and performance in mind, embedding compliance and governance principles throughout
- Collaborate with the VP of Engineering Operations on AWS infrastructure (EKS, ECS, Lambda, CloudFront, S3) as it relates to the Manage domain
- Contribute to CI/CD pipeline improvements and progressive delivery practices across squads
- Drive reliability monitoring and observability within Manage (Prometheus, Grafana, Sentry)
- Contribute to security posture improvements: vulnerability scanning, pen testing coordination, and enforcement of standards
- Work closely with the Engineering Director for Engage to align on shared engineering standards, cross-cutting initiatives, and resource decisions
- Partner with the Head of Platform on cross-domain architectural decisions that span Manage, Data, and AI systems
- Collaborate with the VP of Engineering Operations on delivery excellence, operational compliance, and cost governance
- Represent the Manage Squad in engineering leadership forums and contribute to the organisation-wide technical strategy
- We are highly invested in your development, and your career path will be a standing, dedicated item in your regular check-ins with your line manager. As an Senior Engineering Manager at Grip you will have plenty of opportunities to grow and try new things, leading others or owning technical initiatives across the organisation
- We operate with a clear progression framework and use quarterly performance reviews to reflect and set goals so that you can achieve your full potential
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Grip is an AI-powered event networking solution that empowers professionals with quality interactions, and the event industry with full-cycle support and valuable insights. At its core, its proprietary technology drives intelligent recommendations through a self-learning matchmaking engine.
The platform leverages natural language processing, advanced algorithms and deep neural networks to constantly learn about the professional goals and interests of visitors, exhibitors and sponsors. This enables a higher return on time for professionals, and a higher return on investment for exhibitors, sponsors and event organisers.
As people swing back into in-person events, Grip is still in a strong position to aid event organizers in delivering live, virtual and hybrid events via its software solutions. This ability to cover all types of event retains Grip as one of the top players in the industry.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Feb 2021
$13m
SERIES A
Nov 2014
$0.1m
ANGEL
Total funding: $13.1m
Company benefits
- Private Health Cash Plan
- Company Training Sponsorship Programme
- Enhanced and Inclusive Paid Parental Leave
- Paid Volunteer Time Off (VTO)
- Remote-first working
- Rare opportunity to grow with the company and take the lead in shaping an entire industry’s use of technology
- Sabbatical Leave and extra days on tenure
- Group Life Insurance
Company HQ
London, England, UK
Articles
Leadership
Tim Groot
(Founder & CEO)Member of the Digital Innovation Working Group at UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry. Also a Pledger at Founders Pledge.
Lizzy Evans
(CPO)Joined Grip as VP of Product, and was promoted to CPO in 2025. Previously spent 4 years at Feedr, ultimately as CPO, and worked in product-based roles at a couple of other companies prior to this.
Maria Martin
(COO)Joined Grip as Project Lead for Business Operations. Was promoted to Head Of Business and People Operations, and then COO in 2020. Previoulsy worked in Project Management at Fourth, and in Partnership Projects at Marriott International.
People progressing
Hew joined Grip as SVP of Marketing in 2021. He has made a strong impact in this position, generating tens of millions in pipeline and revenue while leading a global team.
Christina joined Grip in 2020 as Director of Client Success. She became Director of Professional Services in 2022, before taking up her current position as VP of Sales and Customer Success later that year.
James joined Grip as Financial Controller in 2025, and was appointed Head of Finance a year later.
Pablo has worked at Grip since 2016, starting as a Software Engineer. He was promoted to Senior Software Engineer after a year, then became Chapter Lead (Middleware & Backend). In 2023 he transitioned to the role of Software Architect, and was promoted to Head Of Platform in 2024.
Dheeraj joined Grip in 2021 as Head of Engineering Operations, becoming Head of Engineering in 2024 and VP of Engineering Operations in 2025.
Emma joined Grip as a Junior Project Manager in 2020. She was promoted four times in three years, ultimately taking up the position of Director of Delivery in 2023.
George joined Grip as a Front End Developer in 2018. He became Engineering Manager (then Senior) in 2021 and 2023 respectively, eventually being promoted to Engineering Director in 2025.
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