Engineering Manager

About the Role

Engineering Manager

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Technical Leadership

• Build and lead a high-performing engineering pod responsible for critical platform capabilities.
• Define technical strategy, architectural patterns, coding standards, and system design principles aligned with business OKRs.
• Drive technical roadmapping and break down complex requirements into well-scoped sprints.
• Ensure systems are designed for reliability, scalability, and performance with strong observability practices.

Delivery & Execution

• Own quarterly OKRs and feature delivery timelines; maintain visibility into team velocity, blockers, and progress.
• Identify and mitigate technical risks early; communicate dependencies and trade-offs proactively.
• Define sprint cadence, conduct planning and retrospectives, and drive continuous process improvement.
• Ensure smooth integration with DevOps, QA, and deployment pipelines; own quality gates for releases.

Team Building & People Leadership

• Hire, onboard, and retain a high-performing engineering team; conduct technical interviews.
• Lead team rituals: sprint planning, code reviews, retrospectives, and design reviews.
• Coach engineers on technical growth, career development, and leadership potential.
• Conduct regular 1-on-1s, provide feedback, and foster a culture of ownership and learning.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product, Design, QA, DevOps, and other engineering pods on priorities and technical constraints.
• Communicate proactively on technical decisions, blockers, and resource needs.
• Advocate for engineering needs while balancing business priorities and delivery timelines.

Technical Contribution

• Write and review production code as appropriate; maintain technical credibility.
• Unblock engineers on debugging, architecture decisions, and technical problem-solving.
• Lead by example in code quality and operational excellence.

Requirements

Experience & Technical Expertise

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, with 3+ years in engineering leadership.
• Proven track record leading engineering teams in high-scale SaaS or enterprise software environments.
• Strong foundation in backend systems: database design, API architecture, distributed systems, and scalability.
• Hands-on experience with modern tech stacks (Python, Java, Go, Ruby); ability to code-review and mentor across languages.
• Deep understanding of testing practices: unit, integration, end-to-end, and performance testing.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, test automation, and production observability.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Proven ability to build, scale, and retain high-performing engineering teams.
• Strong project management skills: breaking down requirements, estimating effort, managing multiple initiatives.
• Excellent communication across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience defining technical strategy and making architectural decisions with pragmatism and long-term thinking.
• Proven cross-functional collaboration with Product, Design, QA, and DevOps teams.

Soft Skills & Mindset

• Ownership mindset: Take end-to-end accountability for pod outcomes and proactively solve problems.
• Customer-centric thinking: Understand how your pod's work impacts customer experience and business goals.
• Adaptability: Comfortable in fast-growing startup environments; flexible and iterative approach to processes.
• Systems thinking: Aware of how your pod connects to the broader platform and cross-team impacts.
• Relentless commitment to quality and technical excellence.