Engineering Manager - Media Agency
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Tech
Closing date: 27 June 2025
Requisition ID: 400002379
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.
Engineering Manager - Media Agency
Joining Sainsbury’s Tech means becoming part of a collaborative, inclusive, and forward-thinking team that’s passionate about delivering impactful, innovative solutions. We’re not just building technology – we’re shaping the future of retail for millions of customers across the UK.
As an Engineering Manager, you'll lead and inspire high-performing engineering teams to deliver scalable, efficient, and high-quality solutions. Your role goes beyond day-to-day delivery – you’ll be responsible for setting the long-term strategic direction of your teams, aligning technology roadmaps with business goals, and managing budgets to ensure sustainable growth and success.
You’ll work closely with cross-functional stakeholders to drive continuous improvement, foster technical excellence, and implement modern engineering practices. From defining engineering culture to introducing cutting-edge tools and processes, you’ll have the opportunity to shape a world-class engineering function.
At Sainsbury’s, we celebrate diversity and inclusivity, and we believe in empowering our people to make meaningful contributions. You’ll find a supportive environment where collaboration is key, innovation is encouraged, and your voice is valued.
About the team:
Our Media Agency team is on a mission to build a best-in-class Retail Media Network (RMN) — a transformative platform that empowers brands to reach and engage customers in smarter, more personalised ways across the full customer journey.
As part of Nectar360, a leader in loyalty and customer insight, we harness the power of Sainsbury’s rich first-party data and deep customer understanding to deliver targeted media campaigns across both physical and digital touchpoints — from in-store screens and point-of-sale to online display, sponsored product listings, and personalised emails.
We’re looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to join us on this journey — someone who can lead with vision, drive long-term strategy, and help shape the engineering foundations of a rapidly evolving and high-impact area of the business.
What you'll do:
- You’ll lead the strategic direction, delivery, and performance of a cross-functional engineering team, ensuring alignment with business goals and the long-term vision of our Retail Media Network platform.
- You’ll be responsible for shaping and executing the engineering roadmap in close partnership with Product Managers and other stakeholders — taking full ownership of end-to-end product delivery, from discovery through to operational excellence and continuous improvement.
- As a line manager of managers and senior individual contributors, you’ll coach, mentor, and develop a high-performing, inclusive team. You’ll support career growth, nurture engineering talent, and ensure your team has the right structure, tools, and environment to thrive.
- You’ll play a hands-on role in building a world-class engineering culture — hiring diverse and talented individuals, fostering psychological safety, and encouraging a mindset of collaboration, innovation, and accountability.
- You’ll drive engineering excellence by promoting modern, scalable practices (CI/CD, automation, testing, cloud-native architecture) and advocating for agile and lean methodologies that enable rapid, value-driven delivery.
- You’ll lead budgeting and resource planning across your initiatives, making informed decisions that balance cost, value, and long-term sustainability.
- You’ll ensure your products are reliable, secure, and well-managed — overseeing service performance, change management, and compliance with governance standards.
- As a senior leader, you’ll contribute to the wider engineering strategy at Sainsbury’s Tech, collaborating with peers to shape the future of our platforms, processes, and ways of working.
Who you are:
- You’re a strategic and passionate engineering leader with a strong track record of building and guiding high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams in a fast-paced, product-led environment.
- You have experience managing managers and scaling engineering organisations, with a focus on enabling others to lead, grow, and deliver effectively at all levels.
- You bring hands-on experience as a developer and a deep understanding of modern engineering practices, architectures, and delivery models — enabling you to make informed technical decisions and guide teams with credibility and insight.
- You lead with empathy and clarity, combining hands-on coaching with the ability to empower teams to make smart decisions and continuously improve. You’re an advocate for inclusive leadership, a champion of diverse teams, and someone who fosters a culture of openness, trust, and technical excellence.
- Experienced in managing complex deliveries, you’re comfortable prioritising across competing demands, balancing short-term delivery with long-term technical vision and sustainability.
- Your excellent communication and stakeholder management skills enable you to influence and collaborate across functions, from engineers to senior business leaders.
- A plus is you have experience managing budgets — confident managing Capex and Opex budgets, allocating resources effectively, and ensuring ROI across your initiatives.
#LI-SE1
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
