Engineering Manager - Authentication & Authorisation

About Pleo Messy spend management is tricky business. And tedious processes are a lose-lose situation for all involved, not just finance. At Pleo, we’re changing that. We build spend solutions that make managing money seamless, empowering, and surprisingly effective for finance teams and employees alike – with a vision to help all businesses ‘go beyond’. The word ‘Pleo’ actually means ‘more than you’d expect’, and living by that mantra has been the secret to our success over the last 10 years. Now, we’re at a pivotal moment in our journey; every move we make has a direct impact on our 40,000+ customers, our business, and our collective success. We need people who take pride in uncovering customer needs, who turn complex problems into simple solutions, challenge the way things are done (respectfully), and always aim high. With great ambitions driving us forward, we can’t say we’ve got this whole thing figured out. And frankly, that’s half the fun! What we can say is that we’re a driven, progressive, and, importantly, a kind bunch of 850+ people from over 100 nationalities, all committed to delivering the future of business spending, together. About the role We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to join our Authentication and Authorisation team where you’ll be responsible for the strategy, delivery and outcomes for the Pleo’s product IAM. This is a highly complex space with a legacy custom-built service and a future-state platform, currently being implemented in our Enterprise rewrite. Success in this role means defining and executing a sensible migration path between SMB and Enterprise architectures and modernising our current auth capabilities while maintaining high security, compliance, performance and trust. Who you’ll be working with and reporting to You’ll report to our VP of Engineering and you’ll lead, mentor and grow a team of 6- 10 software engineers. You’ll work closely with Product, Security, Compliance and Core Platform teams to align priorities and manage dependencies, and you’ll collaborate across the wider Backend & Infrastructure group to keep technical direction and platform standards coherent. Ultimately, your role is to foster an environment where engineers can do their best work and grow – as individuals and as a team – by setting clear expectations, ensuring our ways of working enable delivery (rather than slowing it down) and holding a high bar for quality. What you’ll be doing As an Engineering Manager, you will: • Own the vision, strategy and execution roadmap for identity, authentication and authorisation across SMB and Enterprise. • Drive delivery and outcomes for the Authentication & Authorisation team, ensuring we build secure, scalable systems the whole platform can rely on. • Successfully roll out a new identity platform across our Enterprise offerings. • Define and execute a pragmatic migration strategy between the SMB legacy service and the Enterprise architecture. • Update legacy auth services, reducing risk and technical debt while maintaining high security, compliance, performance and trust. • Partner closely with Product, Security, Compliance and Core Platform teams to align priorities, unblock dependencies and keep delivery moving. • Stay close to the technology and architecture, stepping into technical discussions to guide the team through complex trade-offs. • Continuously improve how we build software – strengthening operational excellence, quality and ways of working. • Hire, coach and grow a high-performing team, helping people develop while building trust and strong team dynamics. What you bring Must have • Solid experience as an Engineering Manager (or equivalent people-lead role), with meaningful people leadership impact (including coaching and performance support). • Strong hands-on technical depth in authentication and authorisation domains and standards (e.g. OAuth, SAML, OIDC) and modern identity platforms (e.g. Amazon Cognito, Auth0, Stytch) within a product centric organisation. • Architectural credibility and a track record of guiding teams through technical complexity, including migrations and legacy constraints. • Strong stakeholder management across engineering, product and risk-focused partners with clear and consistent communication. • A bias for action: you can lead through ambiguity and still create momentum, rather than getting stuck in analysis Nice to have • Background as a software architect or staff-level engineer before moving into people leadership. • Experience operating in security – or compliance-sensitive domains where trust and reliability are non-negotiable. • Experience scaling teams (hiring and building clear ownership) while maintaining delivery quality. Why this role is a good fit for you This role is a good fit for you if: • You care deeply about people’s leadership and you want your team to grow, thrive and ship great software together. • You enjoy cross-team collaboration and you’re energised by aligning stakeholders to solve platform-wide problems. • You like staying close to code and architecture enough to guide technical decisions, while still leading through people and outcomes. This role is not a good fit for you if: • You prefer roles where you can be removed from day-to-day delivery, team dynamics and technical decision-making. • You’re looking for a well-defined problem space with a clear migration plan already in place. • You’re uncomfortable with ambiguity, trade-offs and the reality of improving a critical legacy system while building the future state. How you’ll develop in this role In your first 6 months, you’ll take ownership of the auth platform roadmap, build strong alignment across Backend & Infrastructure stakeholders and drive tangible progress on rolling out a new identity platform for our Enterprise offerings. You’ll also strengthen the team’s delivery rhythm and operational excellence, ensuring we maintain trust, security and availability while moving quickly. By 12 months, you’ll have delivered key migration and modernisation milestones, reduced legacy risk and clarified a sustainable path between SMB and Enterprise auth architectures. You’ll have grown the team where needed, strengthened technical ownership and helped create a high-performing environment where people can do great work and keep improving how we build. Show me the benefits! • Your own Pleo card (no more out-of-pocket spending!) • Lunch is on us for your work days – enjoy catered meals or receive a lunch allowance based on your local office • Comprehensive private healthcare – depending on your location, coverage options include Vitality, Alan or Médis • We offer 25 days of holiday + your public holidays (additional days may apply in select countries based on local standards). • For our Team, we offer both hybrid and fully remote working options • Option to purchase 5 additional days of holiday through a salary sacrifice • We use MyndUp to give our employees access to free mental health and well-being support with great success so far • Paid parental leave – we want to make sure that we’re supportive of families and help you feel that you don’t have to compromise your family due to work The interview process We want to ensure you are set-up for success and understand what will be expected of you. If your application is successful, our interview process is as follows: • Intro call: 30min chat with our Talent Partner to discuss the role and your background. • Hiring Manager interview: 45-minute experience-based conversation with our VP of Engineering to deep dive into (technical) leadership experience, achievements and complexity you’ve been used to. • Pleo Challenge: A 60-minute presentation interview focusing on discussing one of your previous achievements. • Final interview: A 30-minute leadership interview with our Chief Technical Product Officer assessing your behavioural skills and values. Transparency is important to us so we also wanted to share some insights about what we’re looking for in applications to ensure you can set yourself up for success! • CV writing and content: Using AI tools is completely fine, but CVs that read like generic templates often hide what actually makes you great. We’d love to see specific examples of impact, ideally in the format “Achieved X, as measured by Y, by doing Z”, plus context on the systems you worked with and the constraints you operated under. • Application care: Every application is reviewed by a human. Taking time to answer application questions clearly (and tailoring them to this role) genuinely helps you stand out. • Profile to role fit: This role is a strong match if you’ve led an engineering team in a product environment and you bring real depth in authentication and authorisation (for example, implementing or running platforms like Cognito/Auth0/Stytch, and working with standards like OAuth, SAML and OIDC). We’re also looking for someone who can lead through migration complexity, keep stakeholders aligned across platform/security/compliance and drive outcomes with a bias for action. About your application • English first. Since it’s our company language, please submit your application in English. You’ll be using it a lot if you join us. • A fair look for everyone. Our talent team reads every single application to ensure the process is fair. To keep things running smoothly, we only accept applications through our system—our support team can’t pass on calls or emails. • Diversity drives us. We can only reach our goals if our team reflects the world around us. That starts with you hitting apply, even if you don’t tick every single box. We encourage people from all backgrounds and experiences to join us. • Interview at your best. We want you to feel comfortable throughout the process. If you have any accessibility requirements or need a specific format, email [email protected]. We’ll