Software Engineering Manager
Pearson · London
Role: Software Engineering Manager (Oracle)
Division: Assessment & Qualifications Delivery
Location: Rotherham, Manchester or London, UK
"This role aligns with positions typically advertised in the external market as Oracle Engineering Manager, Oracle Development Manager or Oracle Technical Lead."
About Pearson: At Pearson we add life to a lifetime of learning so everyone can realise the life they imagine. We do this by creating vibrant and enriching learning experiences designed for real-life impact. Our Purpose | Add Life to a Lifetime of Learning. Pearson was founded in 1844 and has been built on our ability to grow with and adapt to a constantly evolving market. Our 20,000+ employees are dedicated to creating high-quality, digital-first, accessible and sustainable resources for lifelong learning.
About the Job
We are looking for an Oracle Engineering Manager to lead our Oracle engineering team on a programme called TOpS. You will be accountable for the delivery, quality and technical direction of the team’s work across Oracle Database, Oracle APEX applications and the data pipelines that ingest, transform and validate data from multiple internal and external sources. You will make sure that data is trustworthy, that solutions are secure and supportable, and that the team delivers predictably.
This is a people leadership role with strong technical credibility. You will line manage and develop engineers, set engineering standards, and work alongside product owners, architects, QA, project managers and business SMEs. You will also represent the team at senior stakeholder meetings, explaining progress, risks, design ideas and decisions in clear, non-technical terms.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead, line manage, coach and develop a team of Oracle engineers, including recruitment, objective setting, one-to-ones and performance reviews.
- Own delivery planning with product owners: backlog prioritisation, estimation, sprint planning, release management, and progress reporting.
- Set and uphold engineering standards for SQL, PL/SQL and APEX development, including code review, source control, CI/CD and automated testing.
- Provide technical direction on Oracle APEX application architecture, security, performance and environment management (development, test and production).
- Oversee the design, operation and monitoring of data pipelines, ensuring they are reliable, performant and meet agreed service levels.
- Define and embed a data quality framework covering validation rules, reconciliation, quality measures, issue management, and root cause analysis.
- Ensure solutions meet data protection, security and audit requirements, working with architecture, information security and governance colleagues.
- Manage risks, issues and dependencies, including those involving third-party suppliers and other Pearson teams.
- Lead incident and problem management for the team’s live services and drive continuous improvement.
About You
You will be an experienced Oracle professional who has moved into leadership, with a track record of leading engineering teams delivering data-focused projects. You are comfortable rolling up your sleeves to review a design or a complex PL/SQL package, but your real strength is building a capable, motivated team and creating the conditions for it to deliver high-quality work. You communicate clearly with technical and non-technical audiences, and you thrive on fast-moving, business-critical programmes.
Key Skills & Experience
Leadership and Delivery
- Proven experience leading and line managing a team of Oracle, database or data engineers.
- Recruiting, coaching and developing engineers, and building an inclusive, high-performing team culture.
- Agile delivery experience (Scrum and/or Kanban) using Jira, including planning, estimation and release management.
- Managing risks, issues, dependencies, and stakeholder expectations on complex programmes.
- Excellent communication and planning skills, with the ability to present to senior stakeholders and put technical topics into non-technical terms.
Oracle Technical Expertise
- Strong hands-on background in Oracle Database (19c or later), SQL and PL/SQL, with the ability to review code and designs critically.
- Substantial experience of Oracle APEX, including application architecture, security (authentication, authorisation, session state protection) and performance.
- Understanding of ORDS and RESTful integration patterns.
- Experience managing the APEX application lifecycle, including deployment between environments, APEX upgrades and source control.
- Database performance tuning, data modelling and an understanding of backup, recovery and resilience in partnership with DBA and infrastructure teams.
Data Pipelines, Transformation and Quality
- Experience overseeing ETL/ELT pipeline design and operation, including CDC, orchestration, monitoring and alerting.
- Establishing data quality controls and measures, such as validation rules, reconciliation, profiling, exception handling and data quality reporting.
- Data governance knowledge, including data lineage, ownership, access control, auditability and UK GDPR obligations.
- Experience of data warehousing concepts, design and loading strategies.
Engineering Standards
- Embedding coding standards, peer review and documentation practices.
- CI/CD for database and APEX change using Git (Bitbucket) and tools such as SQLcl or Liquibase.
- Automated testing strategy, including PL/SQL unit testing (e.g. utPLSQL) and working closely with QA engineers.
- Incident, problem and change management for live services.
Desirable Skills & Experience
- Oracle integration and data quality tools such as Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), OCI Data Integration or Oracle Enterprise Data Quality.
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) or Autonomous Database, and/or Oracle on AWS (e.g. Amazon RDS for Oracle, AWS DMS, S3).
- Awareness of the current APEX roadmap, including APEXlang and AI-assisted development, and how to adopt new capabilities safely.
- Relevant Oracle certification and/or an agile or service management qualification (e.g. Scrum Master, ITIL).
- Managing work delivered by third-party suppliers or contractors.
- Experience in education, assessment or another regulated, high-stakes delivery environment.
- Jira and Confluence, Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft Office applications.
Job Location and Hours
The role is aligned to our Manchester, Rotherham, or London offices. Our Rotherham office is located at Junction 1 of the M18. All our roles are hybrid working; our current policy requires our team to visit their base office no more than once a week, and with the possibility of occasional business travel to other Pearson sites. Candidates must be a suitable commute from their base office as our office presence policy may change to require more frequent presence in the future.
We work a 37.5-hour week, with all our team free to flex their day around our core hours, which are Monday to Friday, 10 to 4 GMT/BST. School runs, etc. can be accommodated. Other flexible working patterns can be considered, including part-time working and non-traditional hours.
Your benefits and rewards
Here at Pearson we offer a range of benefits, which include:
- 25 days annual leave (increasing by 1 day with every year of continuous service up to 30 days)
- Private pension plan scheme where we pay in double what you contribute, up to 16% depending on your age
- Life, private medical and dental care insurance options, plus free eye tests
- Stock/share purchase options
- Maternity, paternity, and family care leave as well as flexible working policies
- An employee wellbeing assistance programme
- Cycle to work programme, volunteering days, gym membership concessions in selected office locations, along with retail and leisure discounts