Engineering Manager

Location: Praha, Czechia

Thales people architect identity management and data protection solutions at the heart of digital security. Business and governments rely on us to bring trust to the billons of digital interactions they have with people. Our technologies and services help banks exchange funds, people cross borders, energy become smarter and much more. More than 30,000 organizations already rely on us to verify the identities of people and things, grant access to digital services, analyze vast quantities of information and encrypt data to make the connected world more secure.

Thales in the Czech Republic employs over 400 people from 45 different nationalities. A total of 15 teams work on projects for government agencies, banking, mobile services and the Internet Of Things (IoT) technology. At the core of our business is the development of software which we configure and embed in a multitude of different devices and form factors. These include many kinds of payment cards, SIM cards, travel passes, secure eBanking devices, authentication tokens, machine identification modules (MIM), and secure ID documents including ePassports, eID and eHealth cards, as well as eDriving licenses. Because of the international environment surrounding us every day, it comes as no surprise that English is our official corporate language.

We are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a pool of engineers responsible for building and evolving a modern cloud-native identity platform.

You will manage a group of approximately 20 engineers, ensuring strong people leadership, high engineering quality, and effective squad formation aligned with product priorities. You will work closely with Product Managers, Product Owners, Architects, and Engineering leadership to translate roadmap priorities into well-structured squads that deliver reliably and efficiently.

This role combines people leadership, engineering excellence, and organizational coordination in a dynamic AI-driven development environment.

What You Will Do – People Leadership

Lead, mentor, and develop a pool of approximately 20 engineers.

Conduct regular performance management, career development, and coaching.

Foster a strong engineering culture focused on ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Maintain a healthy and motivated engineering environment.

What You Will Do – Squad Formation & Delivery

Assemble dynamic squads aligned with roadmap priorities and expertise areas.

Allocate engineers to work items based on skills, capacity, and complexity of initiatives.

Ensure squads operate effectively and remove delivery impediments.

Support teams in adopting AI-first development practices and modern engineering tooling.

What You Will Do – Collaboration with Product

Work closely with Product Managers and Product Owners to translate product priorities into engineering capacity and squad assignments.

Participate in planning cycles, helping balance innovation initiatives and product growth workstreams.

Ensure engineering teams clearly understand priorities, scope, and success criteria.

What You Will Do – Engineering Excellence

Maintain high standards for architecture, quality, security, and scalability.

Drive adoption of best practices across development, testing, and delivery.

Ensure teams continuously improve engineering skills and capabilities.

What You Will Do – Hiring & Talent Development

Own hiring for your engineering pool.

Identify skill gaps and proactively recruit the right talent.

Build a diverse and high-performing engineering team.

What You Will Do – Operational Leadership

Participate in planning cycles and ensure proper capacity allocation and execution tracking.

Monitor engineering progress and address risks early.

Provide clear status updates to Engineering Leadership.

What We Are Looking For

Experience:

7+ years in software engineering roles.

3+ years in engineering leadership or people management.

Experience leading teams building cloud-native distributed systems.

Leadership Skills:

Proven ability to lead and grow engineers.

Strong coaching and feedback culture.

Ability to balance delivery pressure with team health and quality.

Technical Understanding:

Strong understanding of modern engineering environments such as microservices architectures, cloud platforms, CI/CD, automation, and security-sensitive systems.

Ability to engage with architects and engineers on technical decisions.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working. Great journeys start here, apply now!