You will bring expertise in PHP, JavaScript, and modern web technologies, alongside proven leadership in delivering scalable, reliable, and user-focused web applications. 

The ideal candidate is both a strong technical leader and a collaborative partner. This is a role for someone who thrives on balancing day-to-day delivery with team leadership in the context of our small web team of 4 people. We are seeking someone who can bridge product, editorial and engineering to ensure that the web team delivers changes that are clean and robust.

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Core Responsibilities

• Delivery: Direct cycle planning, prioritisation, and workload allocation for the web team, ensuring alignment with organisational goals. Maintain momentum on in-progress tasks, confirm completion standards are met, and self-assign tasks where appropriate.
  
  
• Team Leadership: Provide leadership and technical direction to the web team, proactively removing blockers and supporting professional growth. Coach team members on technical matters, promote knowledge sharing, and uphold a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. Participate in the on-call rota during high-demand or high-traffic periods.
  
  
• Maintenance & Improvement: Balance maintenance activities with product and editorial priorities. Monitor logs and system alerts, addressing issues promptly. Systematically manage technical debt, ensure documentation standards are upheld, and propose improvements to both applications and workflows.
  
  
• Collaboration: Conduct regular reviews of pull requests to ensure code quality and adherence to best practices. Support knowledge transfer through pairing and ensemble sessions. Act as a liaison between engineering, product, design, and editorial teams to ensure clarity of requirements and effective delivery.
  
  
• Technical Oversight & Standards: Enforce robust coding, testing, and deployment practices. Ensure stakeholder requirements are met, design implementations match specifications, and that post-release monitoring is in place to detect regressions.

Skills/Requirements

• Proven experience in a web management or senior technical leadership role.
  
  
• Fluent in PHP, JavaScript, and the ecosystem of technologies required to build and maintain modern, scalable web applications.
  
  
• Deep understanding of coding standards, testing methodologies, deployment pipelines, and monitoring practices.
• Experience working with legacy code, improving current features and introducing new functionality without discarding the existing behaviour that is sometimes obscured.
• Well-versed in software engineering practices such as test-driven design, refactoring, and domain-driven design
  
  
• Demonstrated ability to manage technical teams, delivery cycles, and cross-functional collaboration.
  
  
• Experience mentoring developers and cultivating a high-performance engineering culture.
  
  
• Strong problem-solving skills and a proactive approach to managing technical debt and system health.
  
  
• Willingness to participate in on-call support for critical events.

Our Platform

At Journal Media, our technology stack powers a fast, reliable, and scalable digital news ecosystem:

• A RESTful API written in PHP, serving as the backbone for all platforms, from iOS and Android apps to desktop and mobile websites.
• Native mobile applications on iOS and Android, aiming for a seamless, high-speed reading experience.
• Scalable websites designed to handle the demands of the modern news cycle.
• Infrastructure hosted on AWS for resilience and scalability.
• A customised WordPress CMS extended with powerful new features to support editorial workflows.
• A distributed system connecting our own applications with third-party services such as Firebase, Mailchimp and multiple payment processors
• Additional innovations, including adaptive image APIs and NoSQL data collection systems for analytics and cohort analysis.

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What We Offer

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• A pivotal leadership with the opportunity to shape both the technical direction and working culture of the web team.
• Collaborative, forward-thinking culture that values teamwork and results.
• Competitive compensation package with flexibility to support work-life balance
• The role can be fully remote or hybrid with the freedom to move between home and our offices in a great central location in Dublin city centre.

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Please apply by email with a cover letter and up-to-date CV to jobs@thejournal.ie with Application: Engineering Manager in the subject line.

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Closing date for applications is Monday October 27th 2025.

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