Engineering Manager, Data Sync

Ditto•Austin, TX

2d•$222,000 - $283,000•Remote

About The Position

As an Engineering Manager, Data Sync, you will lead the teams responsible for the core technologies that make Ditto work: our data sync engine (including novel replication algorithms and CRDT libraries), our query engine (DQL—a SQL-like language designed for CRDT-based documents), and our embedded database performance. Together, these three workstreams form the technical heart of Ditto’s product. From day one, you will own delivery across these workstreams, working closely with senior engineers who are deep domain experts, and partnering with product managers to translate customer needs into a focused, well-prioritized roadmap. Operating in our async-first culture, you will drive execution through clear written communication, ruthless prioritization, and a relentless focus on shipping. This is a people management role—our Staff+ engineers own the technical depth, and your job is to make them fast, focused, well-supported. Your background in this domain will help guide the team and ensure we’re building in the right direction. Your years of delivering database or adjacent products mean you think about performance, quality gates, and rollout strategies for critical infrastructure.

Requirements

Management Experience: 3+ years managing software engineering teams, including responsibilities like hiring, performance management, and career development.
Database domain experience: 5+ years of technical leadership experience, with at least some of that experience in database, storage, or data infrastructure engineering organizations.
Operational excellence: Proven track record of shipping infrastructure or database products on a predictable cadence, with strong instincts around prioritization and scope management.
Distributed systems literacy: Sufficient familiarity with consistency models, conflict resolution, replication topologies, and convergence to be a credible partner to senior engineers—even if you’re not designing the protocols yourself.
A bar-raising ability: Demonstrated ability to hire the best, and grow high-performing teams where database and distributed systems engineers are hard to find.
Product sense: Customer orientation for an infrastructure product. Ability to navigate roadmap trade-offs driven by deals and prioritization calls that require understanding what customers actually need versus what they ask for.

Nice To Haves

Experience with AWS (preferred), GCP or Azure, and experience with k8s in production environments.
Familiarity with CRDTs, offline-first architectures, sync algorithms, or local-first software.
Background in Rust, C++, or systems-level programming.
Exposure to query engines or query language development.
P2P or mesh networking familiarity.

Responsibilities

Lead, Mentor, and Grow: Guide and grow a combined team of 8–12 engineers across three workstreams (data sync, query engine, and embedded database performance), giving them clarity on priorities and creating the conditions for them to do their best work.
Ship with Velocity: Own delivery across all three workstreams. Break large technical programs into milestones, hold teams accountable, escalate early when things slip, and make trade-off calls between feature work, performance investment, and tech debt—with minimal top-down direction.
Hire Exceptional Engineers: Build and maintain a strong hiring pipeline in a competitive market. Close senior candidates with a compelling pitch and continuously raise our bar.
Partner with Senior ICs: Work closely with senior engineers who are deep technical experts. Provide influence, shield them from organizational friction, and know when to defer versus when to guide more hands on.
Drive Roadmap and Prioritization: Collaborate with product managers and stakeholders to shape the team’s roadmap and ensure we’re delivering maximum customer value.
Represent the Team: Communicate the team’s work to leadership, customers, and cross-functional partners. Write status updates that convey signal. Translate between customer pain and engineering investment.
Foster Culture: Cultivate a culture of trust, collaboration, and continual improvement aligned with Ditto’s values, operating effectively in our remote environment.