Engineering Manager – Platform Engineering
Summary
Leads Gruve's India engineering team building PulseAI, an on-premises, Kubernetes-native GPU orchestration and AI inference platform. A hands-on manager balancing people leadership and sprint delivery with technical work across FastAPI/PostgreSQL, React, and RKE2/OpenShift.
About Gruve
Gruve is an innovative software services startup dedicated to transforming enterprises to AI powerhouses. We specialize in cybersecurity, customer experience, cloud infrastructure, and advanced technologies such as Large Language Models (LLMs). Our mission is to assist our customers in their business strategies utilizing their data to make more intelligent decisions. As a well-funded early-stage startup, Gruve offers a dynamic environment with strong customer and partner networks.
Position Summary:
The Engineering Manager will lead the India engineering team building PulseAI, Gruve's on-premises, Kubernetes-native GPU orchestration and AI inference platform. This is a hands-on role: you will balance day-to-day delivery and people management with real technical involvement — reviewing designs and code, and unblocking engineers — while working closely with the Lead Architect / Product Owner to turn technical designs and JIRA backlogs into shipped, quality-tested increments. You will also grow a high-performing engineering team.
Key Roles & Responsibilities:
- Lead and grow a team of engineers delivering PulseAI, Gruve's on-premises, Kubernetes-native GPU orchestration and AI inference platform
- Own day-to-day engineering delivery: sprint planning, work breakdown, estimation, and tracking progress against roadmap commitments in partnership with the Product Owner and architecture team
- Stay hands-on — review designs, participate in architecture discussions, read and review code, and unblock engineers on FastAPI/PostgreSQL backend, React frontend, and RKE2/OpenShift deployment issues
- Translate technical design documents and JIRA stories into clear, sequenced execution plans for the India engineering team
- Recruit, mentor, and develop engineers; run performance conversations, set growth plans, and build a strong engineering culture within the team
- Coordinate closely with the external development vendor and internal architecture leadership to align delivery timelines, resolve cross-team dependencies, and maintain quality standards
- Drive engineering best practices: code review discipline, CI/CD hygiene, test coverage, and consistent frontend routing and coding standards across the team
- Partner with QA to plan release readiness, support UAT cycles, and ensure milestone sign-off criteria are met before delivery
- Manage risk and dependency tracking across concurrent workstreams (Model Deployment, Observability & Metrics, Secrets Management, GPU Quota/Billing) and escalate blockers early
- Contribute to technical decision-making on multi-tenant isolation, GPU resource quota enforcement, and identity/SSO federation as the platform evolves
- Report on team velocity, delivery risk, and capacity to the Lead Architect / Product Owner and other stakeholders
Basic Qualifications:
- Education: B.E / B.Tech or equivalent in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related discipline
- Experience: 10-15 years in software engineering, with at least 2-3 years in a engineering manager/ tech-lead capacity leading a team of 5-10 engineers
- Demonstrated hands-on proficiency in at least one backend stack (Python/FastAPI or equivalent) and one frontend stack (React or equivalent), with the ability to review code and unblock engineers directly
- Working knowledge of Kubernetes-native application development and deployment (RKE2, OpenShift, or vanilla K8s)
- Experience managing delivery for complex, multi-service platforms (preferably virtualisation and control planes)
- Well versed with Agile methodology including sprint planning, estimation, prioritisation, governance and reporting
- Proven experience hiring, mentoring, and developing engineers, including performance management
- Comfort working across India/US team structures and coordinating with external delivery vendors or partners
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate between technical design detail and delivery status for architecture and product stakeholders
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with GPU-based infrastructure management and control platform, AI/ML inference platforms, or LLM serving stacks will be an solid added advantage
- Familiarity with multi-tenant SaaS architecture, RBAC models, and quota/billing systems will be an added advantage
- Experience with PostgreSQL schema-per-service architectures and event-driven or workflow automation tools (e.g., n8n) will be an added advantage
- Exposure to Prometheus/Grafana-based observability stacks will be an added advantage
- Prior experience managing or coordinating with offshore/nearshore development vendors will be an added advantage
- Certifications such as CKA/CKAD or equivalent Kubernetes credentials are a plus
Why Gruve
At Gruve, we foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and contribute their best work. If you’re passionate about technology and eager to make an impact, we’d love to hear from you.
Gruve is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and thank all who apply; however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.
Skills
As published by greenhouse · 19 questions · 4 written answers
Basics
First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Resume/CV, Cover Letter
Short answers (8)
- Preferred First Name optional
- LinkedIn Profile
- What is your permanent address?
- What is your current address?
- Please mention your official notice period only?
- What is your current salary?
- What are your salary expectations for this role?
- How many total years of software engineering experience do you have?
Pick from a list (7)
- This role is based in Pune (Baner) with a hybrid work model. Are you currently based in Pune, or comfortable relocating and working onsite as required?
- Do you currently, or will you in the future, require visa sponsorship to work here?
- Have you directly managed engineers (hiring, performance reviews, growth plans) as a manager or tech lead in the last 3 years?
- Have you worked directly with US-based stakeholders or customers?
- I acknowledge my right to refrain from disclosing any confidential or proprietary information during the interview and understand that the company will not solicit such information, in accordance with the Non-Disclosure Agreement
- I consent to the use of AI-powered note-taking tools during the interview process and acknowledge that the interview may be recorded and stored for evaluation purposes.
- I hereby provide my consent to share my professional referees with Gruve and authorize Gruve, or its designated third-party representative, to contact them for the purpose of conducting business reference checks as part of the hiring process.
Written answers (4)
- Please mention your undergraduate or postgraduate institute and degree
- In 3-4 lines: what is the largest team you have led, and which product or platform did you build with them? Describe your personal contribution to architecture, design or feature development
- Which of these have you worked on hands-on in the last 3 years? Mention all that apply, with one line on how you used each.
- In 3-4 lines: how do you and your team use AI tools in software development (e.g., spec-driven or agentic workflows, AI code review)?