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City of London, England, United Kingdom
Hybrid
When someone dies, their family inherits a mountain of admin. A will is the single most useful thing that makes it smaller, but only if it’s correct, current and actually says what the person meant. Clearing that bar every time is a team sport, and you’ll be the one making the team work.
This is a new role. You’ll line-manage the engineers across the team, own their growth and hiring, and own the delivery system: how work gets from an idea to production and what slows it down on the way. There’s no playbook to inherit. You’ll write it, change it when the data says so, and have the authority to make it stick.
It isn’t a hands-on role. You won’t write code or own architecture; the team leads and the Head of Technology do that. Your job is to make sure those decisions happen well, and that the people making them are supported, stretched and shipping.
Engineering is small but mighty, and growing. Engineers work in product teams, each with a lead who owns technical direction. We’re planning to grow significantly over the next year, so a lot of the people you manage will be people you hired. You’ll partner with the leads and with Product so every engineer has one clear picture of what matters and why.
We work in small, stable teams that own a product area end to end, from the first conversation with legal to the alert that fires if it breaks. Nobody hands you a ticket and walks away. Teams decide how to solve the problems in front of them, and often which problems are worth solving at all. Decisions are written down, reviewed kindly and revisited when we learn something new.
We’re AI-native. Frontier models, best-in-class agentic tooling, and nobody counts tokens. That pushes the job away from boilerplate and towards the parts that need a person: architecture, judgement, and getting the detail right. Families come to us for a will or for probate, not for software, so we’re not racing the models. Every time they improve, so does the service families get. We ship to production 20+ times a day across 7+ services. That changes what a good delivery system looks like, and working that out is half the fun of this job.
Most weeks split between people and plumbing. Some of the work you’ll pick up:
We care more about how you approach problems than a list of keywords. That said, here’s what tends to make someone successful in this role.
Don’t tick every box?Apply anyway. We hire for how you think, not a checklist.
Every role has them. Better you hear it from us.
Listed, not teased. If something matters to you and isn’t here, ask in your first call.
Four stages, about two weeks end to end. You’ll hear back within two working days of each one, whatever the outcome.
A relaxed conversation with the hiring manager about what you’ve worked on and what you’re looking for. Ask us anything.
you’ll meet the hiring manager · nothing to prepare
A conversation about how you like to work, what you need from a team to do your best work, and the practical stuff: start dates, adjustments, anything you’re unsure about.
you’ll meet our People team · nothing to prepare
Two parts. First, work through a real situation from our world with the Head of Technology: a team that’s stuck, a commitment that slipped, a hire who isn’t landing. Then talk us through how you’ve grown engineers, handled underperformance and earned the trust of a team that didn’t choose you. No trick answers, and we’re as interested in what didn’t work.
you’ll meet the Head of Technology and the team · nothing to prepare
Meet our founder. Talk about where Octopus Legacy is going, where you’d fit in it, and anything you still want to know. It runs both ways.
you’ll meet our founder · bring your questions
A clear yes or no, with written feedback either way. If it’s a yes, we’ll talk through the offer on a call. No exploding deadlines from the hiring manager
Octopus Legacy is the place to plan for death and find support after loss. We were founded after our founder’s mum died suddenly, and we’re a group of people who work in death because we’ve been affected by it. We help people write a will, set up a trust or a Lasting Power of Attorney, and protect the people they love. When someone dies, we help their family with probate and the practical, personal and emotional challenges that come after. We’re part of Octopus Group, alongside Octopus Energy and Octopus Investments.
Octopus Legacy is committed to creating an inclusive environment and is proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from everyone. If you need any adjustments at any stage, tell us and we’ll make them, no explanation needed.
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