Engineering Manager

Bullfinch Recruitment are proud to be partnering with a high-growth social gaming business, delivering innovative, scalable products to a global player base, who are looking for an Associate Engineering Manager to join their team. About Patrianna Patrianna is a fast-scaling product development company headquartered in Gibraltar, with a dynamic, global team powering our growth. We operate at the intersection of technology and entertainment, building innovative solutions that shape the future of social gaming and deliver outstanding experiences to millions of players worldwide. We’re driven by speed, ambition, and bold ideas. At our core, we’re product creators and problem-solvers who thrive in a high-performance environment. We’re looking for exceptional talent—smart, adaptable, and motivated individuals eager to make an impact, scale business functions at pace, and continuously improve. Whether you’re a domain expert or an agile thinker who thrives in change, at Patrianna you’ll have the freedom to innovate, take ownership, and help us lead the next wave of gaming innovation. Join us—and be part of something extraordinary. The Role Lead engineering teams that build and scale our real-time gaming platform while taking ownership of delivery outcomes and team performance. AI-Driven Engineering Culture: We are actively building an AI-driven engineering organization with a clear and deliberate stance: artificial intelligence is a core part of how we build and deliver software — not an experiment, not a trend, and not an optional add-on. AI is embedded into our engineering workflows, from system design and prototyping to refactoring, testing, and code review. We expect engineers to be fully comfortable working in AI-driven environments and to treat AI as a primary productivity multiplier. Strong engineering judgment, architectural ownership, and accountability remain essential—AI amplifies our engineers, it doesn’t replace responsibility for technical decisions. What you will be doing

• Own delivery outcomes — ensure your cross-functional teams deliver reliable systems and meet commitments by coordinating priorities and execution
• Manage and develop people — including performance reviews, career development, and handling performance concerns when needed
• Maintain strong engineering standards — ensure teams follow established architecture patterns and quality standards while navigating complex technical trade-offs
• Enable effective team execution — work with Team Leads and Product Managers to ensure initiatives are clearly defined and teams can execute smoothly
• Improve engineering effectiveness — continuously refine how teams plan, coordinate, and deliver work as the organization scales
• Support system reliability — help teams investigate incidents, understand root causes, and strengthen platform reliability

What we are looking for

• Strong engineering background with extensive software development experience and deep backend expertise (Java ecosystem)
• System design experience building and operating high-load systems using modern backend technologies, event-driven architectures, and cloud-native infrastructure
• Proven track record leading engineering teams and delivering complex production systems while balancing technical leadership and people management
• Experience operating production systems and participating in incident response and post-incident improvements
• Strong product sense — ability to assess product initiatives and identify engineering implications, risks, and missing elements
• Strong delivery ownership with ability to produce realistic estimates, align stakeholders, and communicate scope options and trade-offs clearly

Nice to have: Experience in iGaming or other high-load, real-time platforms Experience transitioning from a senior IC role (e.g., Tech Lead, Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, Solution Architect) into leadership Familiarity with Java, Kafka, Kubernetes, or GCP Experience working in product companies or scale-ups Our Tech Stack Java 25 Spring Boot 4 Google Cloud Platform: Kubernetes Kafka AlloyDB for PostgreSQL Ebean ORM Flyway Redis/Memcached Retool Jenkins/ArgoCD ELK/Sentry/Grafana Jira/Confluence/Slack/Bitbucket Why you will love it You’ll have the freedom to shape engineering practices in a fast-growing environment where your technical expertise directly impacts millions of players worldwide. Work with a modern tech stack, minimal bureaucracy, and highly skilled engineers who value pragmatic execution over process for its own sake. Lead teams that take real ownership of their systems while building something meaningful in the global gaming space. We hire based on skills, drive, and ideas—nothing else. Your background, gender, age, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion, neurodiversity, or educational path will never be a barrier to joining us. We also welcome candidates from non-traditional career journeys and value diverse perspectives that challenge conventional thinking. Diversity fuels our innovation, collaboration, and growth, and we’re committed to creating an environment where everyone can contribute their best work and thrive. Benefits: Generous Leave Policy: Take advantage of paid time off, encompassing both vacation and sick leave, to ensure you can recharge and recover when needed. Take your time on bank holidays as well. Continuously Development: Get an opportunity to join a fast-growing business where the sky’s the limit. Company Events: Engage in our vibrant company culture through a variety of informal events designed to foster camaraderie and teamwork. Full Remote Work: Enjoy the flexibility of working remotely from wherever you feel most productive. Apply To This Job