Engineering Manager (AI Simulation)

Location: Hybrid, with 1 day per week in the Shoreditch, London office

Company

hirify.global builds AI-powered defence technology, including digital wargaming and Command & Control systems used by defence organisations and militaries worldwide.

What you will do

• Own end-to-end delivery for populAI, turning product goals into executable plans and reliable stakeholder commitments.
• Lead and line-manage a multidisciplinary team of Software, QA, and DevOps Engineers.
• Set expectations, provide direct feedback, manage performance and development, and grow future technical leaders.
• Partner with Product, Field Engineering, senior stakeholders, and customers to shape priorities, scope, timelines, and technical investment.
• Work with technical leadership on architecture and technical direction across C++, distributed simulation, TypeScript/React, Node.js, and LLM-backed capabilities.
• Support hiring, remain hands-on when needed, and participate in deployments, demonstrations, hackathons, and industry events.

Requirements

• Experience leading and line-managing a software engineering team, with demonstrable improvements to people and delivery.
• Engineering management is an established professional focus, including experience handling underperformance, conflict, ambiguity, and difficult conversations.
• Experience partnering with Product to shape priorities, challenge scope, and negotiate delivery.
• Experience with behavioural or agent-based simulation involving people, crowds, or vehicles.
• Experience with systems languages, ideally C++, for performance-sensitive, real-time applications.
• Ability to obtain and maintain UK Security Vetted status at least to SC level.

Nice to have

• Experience growing a team through hiring, development, and progression into senior roles.
• Experience delivering data-intensive, real-time, distributed, or mission-critical products.
• Experience in defence, military modelling and simulation, or regulated and security-conscious environments.
• Experience leading modernisation, legacy migration, or a significant change in product direction.
• Experience building Engineering Manager and technical lead partnerships, or mentoring other managers.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid working with one office day per week.
• Private health insurance and an enhanced pension scheme.
• Enhanced parental leave and 25 standard vacation days plus 3 additional days over Christmas.
• Learning and development budget.
• Regular social events and share options.