Engineering Manager
EMPLOYMENT: Full-time, remote SCHEDULE: 9:00 AM-5:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time TEAM: 2 mid-level direct reports
Role Overview: We are a lean team shipping production software quickly. The founder provides direction and expects efficient execution without unnecessary bureaucracy or repeated back-and-forth on decisions a strong manager should make independently. We need a deeply technical Engineering Manager who owns architecture end to end and drives execution across a small team.
You'll Own • All technical decisions and system architecture • Direct management of two mid-level engineers • Translating founder direction into shipped work with minimal turnaround time • Weekly demonstrations of completed work • Code review, technical mentorship, and removing blockers for the team • Full backend and infrastructure ownership • LLM integrations where they provide meaningful leverage
Required Experience and Capabilities • 8+ years of experience shipping production software and 3+ years directly managing engineers • Deep hands-on expertise in Python, Django, and FastAPI • Strong React experience or expertise in an equivalent modern JavaScript framework • Advanced PostgreSQL knowledge, including schema design, query optimization, indexing, and replication • Full AWS infrastructure experience, including EC2, RDS, Lambda, S3, VPC, IAM, CloudWatch, SQS/SNS, and Secrets Manager • Elasticsearch experience, including indexing, query optimization, and cluster management • Redis and Celery experience for caching and asynchronous task infrastructure • Experience integrating third-party APIs across multiple vendors • Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex used as a primary development tool, with the ability to demonstrate the workflow through screen sharing • At least one shipped feature where an Anthropic or OpenAI API performs meaningful work • A proven record of shipping quickly, reducing scope when needed, and making architecture decisions without requiring a detailed specification • Fluent and confident English communication • Availability to work 9:00 AM-5:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time
How You Operate • Receive direction in plain English and execute without unnecessary back-and-forth • Break work down, assign responsibilities, and remove blockers within the same day • Ship the fastest correct solution that works instead of overengineering • Make sound architecture and technical decisions without escalating minor calls • Avoid unnecessary meetings, excessive ticketing, and process-heavy workflows
Candidate Evaluation Requirements Candidates should be prepared to provide the following during the evaluation process: • A three-minute Loom video showing their AI-augmented development workflow, including the editor, rules file, and a real pull request where AI-generated code was reviewed • A link to a shipped project they led end to end, with a brief explanation of what the LLM did • A short example of a time they disagreed with a founder or manager and what they built instead • A brief plan for ramping up two mid-level engineers on a new codebase and getting them shipping within their first 30 days
Compensation Competitive and negotiable based on experience and location.