Marks & Spencer
Software Engineering Manager - AI Engineering
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Software Engineering Manager – AI Engineering Platform | Marks & Spencer
About the Role
We’re revolutionising how we operate, putting industry-leading innovation at the core of our mission. As one of the most iconic brands in the UK, Marks & Spencer is in its most exciting phase yet, embracing integration and product-led technology to better serve millions of customers daily.
You’ll join the M&S Platform team as a Software Engineering Manager, tasked with shaping the future of our developer experience. Our AI Engineering platform is at the heart of our ambitions to streamline development for 200+ engineers across 30+ applications, spanning both customer-facing and colleague-facing systems.
Your role? Build a reusable, scalable AI platform—crafting pipelines, tooling, build plugins, and frameworks that empower engineers to focus on innovation without technical bottlenecks. From **zero to hero: you’ll direct strategy, lead development, and ensure every part of our stack is built with scale, quality, and developer-centricity in mind.
Key Responsibilities
Your work will drive engineering excellence—demanding leadership from technical direction to operations, while fostering a culture of growth, accountability, and innovation. Key obligations include:
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Engineering Leadership
- Be accountable for technical excellence, operations, and solutions in production, from behaviours and skills development to product-level impact.
- Cultivate self-management and ownership across your team through purpose-driven leadership and competency-based talent management.
- Serve as the technical visionary for your team, aligning with the wider technical strategy and partnerships with digital products.
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Platform Ownership & Technical Strategy
- Lead as our AI Engineering platform owner, balancing product thinking with empowerment—making data-driven choices that maximise usability for colleagues, partners, and customers.
- Collaborate with engineering leadership to keep strategic alignment sharp, ensuring teams execute with the ability to "think big".
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Team Management & Growth
- Line-manage Staff and Senior Engineers, driving their development, engagement, and long-term retention.
- Partner with operations to define and track OKRs, ensuring measurable progress and continuous improvement.
- Champion engineering communities by creating space for strategic discussions (e.g., bar-raising initiatives).
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Linux Christopher to Key Partners & Vendors
- Act as the sole technical liaison for all vendor engagements, maintaining the same care and rigor as our in-house capabilities.
Requirements
To thrive in this role, you must bring:
- Hands-on polyglot engineering experience (Senior level)—proven ability to build, test, and ship code across diverse systems.
- Deep expertise in AI/Agentic technologies, including framework development and agentic workflows/cloud operations.
- 10+ years in software engineering, with experience leading, scaling, and mentoring senior engineers to deliver high-quality solutions.
- Proactive DevOps mindset—"You built it, you run it" approach, combined with a strong understanding of:
- Reliability engineering, testing strategies, and production operations
- Cloud deployment, microservices, and CI/CD pipelines
- Commanding leadership skills:
- People/team management with a servant-leadership ethos.
- Ability to empower rather than micromanage—inspiring teams to hit ambitious goals.
- Clear communication—adapt your language for technical and non-technical audiences alike.
Technical environments expected knowledge of: ✔ GitHub Actions (orchestration, automation) ✔ Copilot SDK and agentic pipelines (platform autonomy, workflow extensibility) ✔ Secure AI integrations (access control, identity management) ✔ Global scalability, production gradations (CSRs) ✔ TypeScript/Kotlin for large-scale development.
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Benefits
more than a job, more like a movement
At M&S, we’re transforming retail for a conscientious, purpose-driven future. As part of this team, you’re not just coding—you’re changing the landscape of how tech powers commerce. And it’s an exciting, fulfilling place to work too.
Here’s a snapshot of the life-work balance and rewards we offer:
- Discover – Unlock 20% discount on all M&S and third-party products as soon as you complete probation.
- Occasion moments – Competitive holiday allowance + the option to buy extra when needed.
- Success shared – Performance-linked bonus schemes to honour collective and individual milestones.
- Long-term security – Generous pension benefits with life assurance safeguards.
- Learning & growth – A tailored induction with continuous training audit.
- Style on tap – M&S Choices portal with exclusive offers, discounts, and perks.
- Family life – parmi global statute on parental/adoption/neonatal leave.
- Holistic care – 24/7 wellbeing with virtual GP access, mental-health support, and more.
- Fulfillment – One paid volunteer day a year to contribute to a cause of your passion.
We Welcome You
We’re shifting retail into a more conscientious and inspiring digital era—and we won’t do it alone. At M&S, inclusion means strengthening diverse perspectives and creating space for all voices.
- Join the vision: If you want to build for good, drive a better tech future, and be part of a high-octane culture, we’d love to hear from you.
- Support matters: Need help to thrive during recruitment? Let us know. (Reasonable adjustments will be arranged—we’re here to support you.)
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