Systems Engineering Manager – Communication, WorkPlace Engineering

Role Summary

The Systems Engineering Manager for communication owns the technology strategy, roadmap and engineering delivery for voice and video services at Tesco.

The role leads a UK and India-based engineering team, turning technology strategy into funded roadmaps while balancing innovation, lifecycle management, risk, operability and cost.

Working with all Infrastructure teams, the role ensures that high quality engineering activity delivers secure, supportable and measurable business outcomes.

Role Responsibilities

As a Systems Engineering Manager, I will:

Technology Strategy & Roadmap

• Own the Voice and Video engineering roadmap.
• Align technology choices to business outcomes, security, operability and cost.
• Set engineering standards, principles and guardrails.
• Drive lifecycle management, technical debt reduction and platform sustainability.

Service Transition & Engineering Governance

• Design services for resilience, supportability and operational readiness.
• Ensure clear engineering and operations ownership through service transition.
• Maintain governance, documentation, knowledge transfer and support models.
• Use incidents, trends and service performance to shape roadmap priorities.
• Ensure solutions remain secure, scalable, supportable and cost effective.
• Ensure new capabilities transition successfully into the Operations team.

Engineering Leadership

• Lead, coach and develop a team of five experienced engineers.
• Build capability through mentoring, succession planning and continuous development.
• Set clear objectives linked to business outcomes and engineering quality.
• Create a culture of ownership, accountability and continuous improvement.

Stakeholder & Supplier Management

• Build strong relationships across Technology and the wider business.
• Manage strategic suppliers and hold them to account for delivery, service and value.
• Support procurement, supplier evaluation and proof-of-concept activity.

Governance, Risk & Security

• Ensure security, resilience and compliance are built into all solutions by design.
• Own and mitigate technical risks across the service area.
• Follow internal change, incident, problem, risk and service management processes.
• Support audit, compliance and governance activity.

Leadership Expectations

• Uses sound judgement and data-led decision making.
• Exert influence across teams and build alignment with wider business teams and functions.
• Develop talent and champion business outcomes, engineering quality and operational excellence.

Technical Experience

The successful candidate should demonstrate experience in several of the following areas:

• Enterprise voice, PSTN, SIP, SBCs, Direct Routing and Operator Connect.
• AudioCodes SBC, OVOC and VAIC technologies.
• Microsoft Teams Phone, Teams Rooms, meeting room and video collaboration platforms.
• vBrick video broadcast or equivalent large scale broadcast technology
• Mobile communication technologies and large-scale enterprise communications environments.
• Cloud, hybrid, monitoring, management and observability platforms.
• Vendor management and commercial engagement.

Financial Planning & Investment Management

• Transform the Voice and Video roadmap into funded, deliverable initiatives.
• Maintain costed roadmaps covering CAPEX, OPEX and engineering resource.
• Forecast demand, skills and capacity for strategic initiatives.
• Track investment against outcomes and business value.

Financial & Commercial Accountability

• Contribute to annual planning, forecasting and budget management.
• Manage Voice and Video engineering budget, forecasts and internal costs.
• Build business cases with clear technical, operational and commercial justification.
• Optimise spend while maintaining resilience, supportability and service quality.
• Support supplier evaluations, contract discussions and investment decisions.

What Success Looks Like

• A clear, approved multi-year Voice and Video roadmap aligned to business priorities.
• Modernised platforms with reduced legacy dependency and technical debt.
• Roadmap planning that balances business demand, engineering capacity and operational risk.
• Technology investment translated into funded initiatives that deliver measurable value.
• Stronger Engineering and Operations alignment, improving service transition and readiness.
• Strategic initiatives delivered to agreed quality, cost and timescale objectives.
• A team culture focused on technical excellence, supportability, customer impact and business value.

You might know us as a supermarket, technology company or even for our award-winning mobile network. Truth is, we’re all of those things, and much more. Our colleagues work with one goal in mind, helping to make every day a little better for our customers, colleagues and communities all over the world. No two customers are the same, neither are our colleagues.

At Tesco, we champion a balance that lets you thrive both in and out of work. Spend 60% of your week collaborating with colleagues at our office locations or local sites and the rest remotely. Whether you're just kicking off your career, juggling passions, or navigating big life events, we're here to support you. We always welcome a conversation about flexible working, so talk to us throughout your application about how we can support.

We're proud to be an accredited Disability Confident Leader, where everyone’s welcome. That’s why we commit to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process.

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