Engineering Manager - ML and Data

About the role

Primer is building a unified payments infrastructure and needs an Engineering Manager to lead its Data team and emerging Machine‑Learning function. You will own delivery across the data platform – from real‑time streaming to warehousing – while coaching a senior‑level engineering group in a remote‑first environment.

Key responsibilities

• Own end‑to‑end delivery of the data platform, including streaming, warehousing, modelling and pipelines.
• Lead, coach and grow engineers, handling career development, performance and team culture.
• Review designs for real‑time streaming systems and data models, ensuring scalability and reliability.
• Partner with product and engineering leadership to shape road‑maps, surface risks and protect the team from over‑commitment.
• Drive operational excellence through data quality monitoring, incident response and post‑mortems.
• Manage platform costs by embedding FinOps practices and ensuring spend visibility.
• Take ownership of the emerging ML function, guiding its delivery and people strategy.

Required profile

• Proven experience managing a team of data engineers with responsibility for delivery and growth.
• Exposure to machine‑learning production lifecycles and ability to lead an ML function.
• Deep technical expertise to evaluate streaming architectures, data models and warehouse trade‑offs.
• Background building and operating large‑scale data platforms (medallion architecture, event streaming, warehousing, DBT).
• Experience coaching engineers across seniority levels, including retaining staff‑level talent.
• Comfort operating with high autonomy and resolving ambiguity.

Required skills

• Kafka
• Snowflake
• Firebolt
• DBT
• AWS
• Terraform
• Kubernetes
• Data mesh concepts
• Event streaming and real‑time data pipelines

What we offer

• Fully remote, globally distributed work environment.
• Competitive share options.
• Uncapped holiday (minimum 25 days).
• Co‑working space access in major cities.
• Workations and annual company retreat.
• Equipment and £500 home‑office stipend.
• Generous learning budget.
• Private medical insurance and additional perks.