Software Engineering Manager
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Job Summary
About the role
Were looking for an Engineering Manager to own the delivery engine of our product. Youll run the team day to day people process and deadlines reporting to the CTO and CEO. The CTO owns technical vision architecture direction and new-product R&D; you own getting the right things shipped on time with a motivated team.
This is a leadership hire not a senior IC role. The single most important thing youll do is take a capable engineering team and make it predictable. Youre hands-on enough to earn the teams respect technically but your core job is delivery people and process not out-engineering the founders.
If youve run engineering teams in a product company modernized real legacy systems without burning them down and want a mandate where the buck for delivery genuinely stops with you this is for you.
Decision rights
You own and are accountable for:
Delivery and deadlines. Sprint planning prioritization predictable shipping.
People. Hiring retention performance management 1:1s growth paths and managing people up or out when needed.
Process. Engineering rhythm: standups reviews release process on-call quality gates - sized for the team not bureaucracy for its own sake.
Day-to-day technical execution. Code and architecture reviews unblocking the team and sound technical calls within the direction set by the CTO.
The CTO owns:
Long-term technical vision and architecture direction
New-product and R&D bets
Final say on major architectural decisions
Requirements
Youre a strong fit if you have
8 years in software engineering with 3 years leading teams in a product company. Youve run a team of roughly 1030 and shipped on deadlines.
A concrete delivery record: you can point to "shipped X with a team of N by date Y" not just describe a philosophy.
Real people-management depth: youve hired well retained good people run honest performance conversations and managed someone out when it was the right call.
Enough technical credibility to lead senior engineers. You dont need to be the deepest engineer in the room but you can follow an architecture discussion ask sharp questions sanity-check estimates and tradeoffs and cant be bluffed. Senior engineers should respect your judgment even if they go deeper than you on the code.
Legacy-system maturity. Youve led teams working on existing production codebases and modernized them incrementally rather than insisting everything be greenfield. You wont try to out-engineer the founders or demand a rewrite to feel comfortable.
Low ego high ownership. Youre energized by being the operational engine alongside technical founders and you take full accountability for delivery.
Nice to have
Experience in a startup or scale-up where you built process from scratch
Familiarity with our domain (publishing / content / SaaS)
A track record of growing senior ICs into team leads
Our technical environment
Youll be leading the team that builds and runs our platform. You dont need deep expertise in all of this but you should be comfortable enough to lead engineers who do follow technical discussions and make sound delivery calls.
Backend: PHP / CodeIgniter
Database: MySQL / relational data
Frontend: JavaScript
Infrastructure: AWS with CI/CD pipelines
AI/LLM features are an active and growing part of the product. So comfort with how AI capabilities get built and shipped is a real plus
If youve managed teams on a PHP/MySQL/AWS stack and shipped reliably on it youll feel at home. If your background is a different stack but youve led legacy modernization and AI-feature delivery well we still want to talk.
Benefits
What we offer
A clearly defined leadership mandate with real authority over the team
Direct partnership with the founders
Competitive cash compensation.
How to apply
Send us a short note that answers one question directly: describe a time you took a team that was missing deadlines and made it predictable. What did you change and how long did it take
We care far more about that answer than a polished CV.
Required Skills:
Youre a strong fit if you have 8 years in software engineering with 3 years leading teams in a product company. Youve run a team of roughly 1030 and shipped on deadlines. A concrete delivery record: you can point to shipped X with a team of N by date Y not just describe a philosophy. Real people-management depth: youve hired well retained good people run honest performance conversations and managed someone out when it was the right call. Enough technical credibility to lead senior engineers. You dont need to be the deepest engineer in the room but you can follow an architecture discussion ask sharp questions sanity-check estimates and tradeoffs and cant be bluffed. Senior engineers should respect your judgment even if they go deeper than you on the code. Legacy-system maturity. Youve led teams working on existing production codebases and modernized them incrementally rather than insisting everything be greenfield. You wont try to out-engineer the founders or demand a rewrite to feel comfortable. Low ego high ownership. Youre energized by being the operational engine alongside technical founders and you take full accountability for delivery. Nice to have Experience in a startup or scale-up where you built process from scratch Familiarity with our domain (publishing / content / SaaS) A track record of growing senior ICs into team leads Our technical environment Youll be leading the team that builds and runs our platform. You dont need deep expertise in all of this but you should be comfortable enough to lead engineers who do follow technical discussions and make sound delivery calls. Backend: PHP / CodeIgniter Database: MySQL / relational data Frontend: JavaScript Infrastructure: AWS with CI/CD pipelines AI/LLM features are an active and growing part of the product. So comfort with how AI capabilities get built and shipped is a real plus If youve managed teams on a PHP/MySQL/AWS stack and shipped reliably on it youll feel at home. If your background is a different stack but youve led legacy modernization and AI-feature delivery well we still want to talk.
