Engineering Manager II - Backend

Job Description

The Managed Channel Team is part of the B2C vertical, specifically within the Marketing Organization, which oversees all marketing-related activities for Groupon deals (ie, merchant products). Managed Channels focuses on organic marketing through the following communication channels: Email Push Notifications SMS Our mission is to drive engagement and conversions by reaching the right users with the right message at the right time without relying on paid media. Our development ecosystem: Languages: Java, Spring, Ruby Frontend: NodeJS, ReactJS Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Memcache Infrastructure: AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform Messaging: Kafka, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ Monitoring & Logging: ELK, Wavefront, Splunk Development Tools: GitHub, Jenkins, JIRA, Confluence, Asana Your Responsibilities: As an Engineering Manager II (EM II), your work will directly contribute to our business-critical platforms and global communications infrastructure. You will be accountable for: 1. Customer Communication Excellence Drive reliability, performance, and personalization across our Dispatch and Subscription systems, including Rocketman, Mailman, Regla, GSS, and PTS. Achieve a 99.99% delivery success rate and under 1s latency for real-time communications. 2. Subscription Platform Growth Lead engineering teams focused on the evolution and scalability of our subscription systems. Enable 2x growth in subscriber engagement and conversion over the next 12 months. 3. Platform Scalability & Operational Efficiency Reduce technical debt and optimize resource usage across core services by modernizing legacy infrastructure and adopting cloud-native patterns. Achieve a 30% reduction in platform operational costs while improving performance benchmarks. 4. Engineering Team Performance & Growth Build high-performing, autonomous, and globally distributed teams that execute with agility and ownership. Maintain 90%+ team engagement and less than 10% regrettable attrition, with measurable velocity improvements. 5. AI-First Transformation Enablement Champion the integration of AI/ML where it enhances business outcomes, from system automation to intelligent routing and customer experience. Deliver at least 2 AI-driven features or systems into production per year. you'll spend time on the following: Take full ownership of the project deliveries across multiple platform services. Collaborate cross-functionally to ensure delivery of business features aligned with cost, scale, and speed goals. Drive technical discussion and decisions within the team s scope, participate in design and code reviews Hire and develop the team members, and manage their performance actively Lead and mentor engineers and managers, focusing on impact, autonomy, and innovation. Establish and enforce engineering best practices, especially in a microservices, cloud-native, CI/CD environment. Drive architectural decisions that align with Groupon s transformation and cost optimization objectives. Manage team health and performance through coaching, feedback, and regular career development conversations. Lead with empathy, vision, and a strong bias for measurable results. we're excited about you if you have: BE/BTech or ME/MTech degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering from a recognised institute 10+ years of overall industry experience with 4 years of leadership (hands-on engineering management) role in developing and supporting web applications, micro services in a distributed environment Experience with managing platform services, delivering projects in a dynamic environment Experience with managing high-performance individuals in different time zones. Good communication and collaboration skills, and the ability to deal with ambiguity. Strong experience in programming languages - Java and competent in designing and building enterprise-scale applications, common frameworks, etc Experience building and scaling large-scale distributed systems and development experience with service-oriented architectures/microservices Prior AWS/GCP/Azure/Pivotal Cloud Foundry experience is a must. Proven success managing and scaling platform services in fast-moving environments Experience leading cross-regional teams and driving platform-level strategies Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, and messaging patterns Passion for mentorship, performance management, and team culture Commitment to customer impact, technical quality, and agile practices We value Managers who are: Customer-Driven: You make decisions anchored in customer outcomes. Operationally Excellent: You scale systems without compromising efficiency. Strategically Minded: You prioritize initiatives that align with company growth and margin goals. Empowering Leader: You invest in people and create a strong team culture. AI-Forward Thinker: You embrace technology shifts and harness AI for scale and innovation.