Engineering Manager

Job Description

About Voltex Electrical

Voltex Electrical is one of Australia’s leading electrical wholesale distributors, with 25 years of history and a growing national footprint. Our IT team powers the platforms, systems, and data that keep the business running — from e-commerce and ERP to logistics and customer experience.

We’re in the middle of a deliberate transformation: building the leadership layer, delivery systems, and engineering culture that will carry us through the next stage of growth. This role is central to that transformation.

The opportunity

This isn’t a maintenance role. You’re joining at a moment where the IT organisation is being reshaped — new leadership structures, new engineering standards, and a clear shift from reactive execution to predictable, outcome-driven delivery.

As an Engineering Manager, you’ll own the health of a team and its delivery system. You’ll coach engineers, build repeatable processes, and partner with product and business stakeholders to turn strategy into shipped outcomes. The expectation is that you build something that scales — not that you become the team’s top individual contributor.

If you’ve ever walked into a team that was busy but not visibly connected to business outcomes, and built the systems that changed that — this is your role.

What you’ll do

Team leadership & people management

• Hire, onboard, coach, and retain engineers; build a strong team culture.
• Run effective 1:1s, performance reviews, development plans, and career pathing (Intermediate → Senior → Lead).
• Address performance issues early with clarity and fairness.
• Build team norms around quality, ownership, and collaboration.

Delivery execution & predictability

• Own team delivery health: planning, prioritisation, sequencing, execution, release readiness.
• Operate the team’s delivery cadence (sprint-based for Delivery teams; flow/kanban for Platform teams).
• Drive clarity of work: crisp tickets, acceptance criteria, dependency mapping, risk management.
• Escalate early and solve bottlenecks — process, staffing, tech debt, unclear requirements.

Systems thinking

• Replace heroics with systems: repeatable processes, guardrails, automation, documentation.
• Improve engineering throughput without sacrificing quality (tests, CI/CD hygiene, code review standards, incident learnings).
• Build operating mechanisms: definitions of done, incident postmortems, quality gates, release playbooks.

Cross-functional partnership

• Partner with Product Managers, Data, Infra, and business stakeholders to translate objectives into deliverable plans.
• Communicate tradeoffs, timelines, and risks honestly to executives and stakeholders.
• Improve the stakeholder experience: clear updates, predictable outcomes, fewer last-minute surprises.

Technical stewardship (hands-off by default)

• Maintain enough technical depth to evaluate architecture and quality, but not act as the primary implementer.
• Partner with Staff / Architects / Lead Engineers on technical direction, tech debt, and platform maturity.
• Ensure the team invests appropriately in maintainability, reliability, and security.

What success looks like

Within 12–18 months, we’d expect to see:

• Your team delivers reliably — visible commitments, improving sprint accuracy, fewer surprise escalations.
• Lightweight but consistent engineering standards and delivery rituals are in place and self-sustaining.
• Clear ownership boundaries between PM, EM, and technical leadership — documented and referenced.
• People are growing: at least one direct report promoted or stretch-assigned within your first year.
• No critical work is blocked by a single person for more than a sprint. The team is resilient.
• Stakeholders trust your team’s delivery and know what to expect.

What you own

• Team execution model and delivery rituals
• Staffing, hiring recommendations, performance and growth decisions
• Prioritisation input via sequencing and capacity constraints (in partnership with PM and leadership)
• Escalations and risk calls for the team’s work
• Standards for team health: quality bar, incident process, sustainable pace

Requirements

• 5–10+ years in software engineering with 3–5+ years leading teams with formal people-management responsibility.
• Proven ability to improve delivery predictability and team performance — not just ship a project.
• Experience redesigning team culture away from hero-dependency toward scalable, system-driven execution.
• Strong coaching capability: you’ve grown engineers, leads, and future managers.
• Comfortable operating with ambiguity; can turn messy goals into an execution plan.
• Strong written and verbal communication, including stakeholder management across time zones.

Preferred

• Experience with distributed teams (PH ↔ AU), including cultural and communication nuance.
• Familiar with modern engineering ops: CI/CD, incident management, observability, testing strategies.
• Experience in retail / e-commerce, ERP-integrated environments, or operationally heavy domains.
  

What we Value

• Systems > heroics - You build mechanisms so teams can scale without burnout.
• Commercially aware - You understand tradeoffs and optimise for business outcomes without cutting corners
• High-trust operator - Clear expectations, consistent follow-through, no surprises.
• Coach mindset - You grow people, build bench strength, and delegate effectively
• Calm under pressure - You handle escalations without spreading chaos
• Earns trust cold - You can build credibility with a team that didn’t ask for a manager.

What this role is not

• Not a “Tech Lead who also manages people” as a permanent model.
• Not the primary coder on the team — may occasionally contribute, but the default is enabling others.
• Not a project manager, though strong execution leadership is expected.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits package. 
• Opportunity to work with a dynamic and innovative team. 
• Professional growth and development opportunities.