Engineering Manager, Device Platforms

Niantic Spatial•San Francisco, CA

2d•$238,500 - $310,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Niantic Spatial is seeking a hands-on engineering leader to own its device-native technology organization, leading the Device SDK and Mobile Engineering teams. The role oversees native SDKs, spatial computing runtimes, and flagship mobile applications, combining people management, technical leadership, architecture, and production engineering. The manager will help shape technical direction, execution strategy, and platform investments across mobile, XR, robotics, and emerging edge-computing environments. The position leads the Platform SDK team, which develops and operates native technology for devices, and the Mobile Applications team, which builds flagship iOS and Android products and sample applications. The leader defines architecture and engineering practices, guides AI-native and agentic development workflows, partners with Research, Platform, and Product leadership, and balances long-term platform investments with product commitments. They remain active in implementation, code review, debugging, performance work, mentoring, and team execution. This position reports to the Head of Product and Platform Engineering. It is based at Niantic Spatial’s San Francisco headquarters, with four days per week in the office and occasional travel to customer sites, partner organizations, and engineering off-sites. U.S. citizenship is required because the role requires eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.

Requirements

10 or more years of software engineering experience, including significant experience building and shipping native applications or SDKs.
5 or more years of engineering leadership experience managing teams and technical leads.
Expert-level proficiency in native iOS development with Swift and Android development with Kotlin.
Strong understanding of software architecture, performance optimization, and cross-platform development.
Experience leading engineers through complex technical initiatives while remaining hands-on.
Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance; U.S. citizenship is required.
Ability to travel occasionally to client locations.

Nice To Haves

Experience with in-app telemetry capture, analytics, and business intelligence data streams that support informed cross-functional decision-making.
Experience supporting government or defense customers, including familiarity with FedRAMP, GovCloud, secure deployment environments, compliance documentation, and regulated-customer operational expectations.

Responsibilities

Define and drive the technical vision for Niantic Spatial’s device-native ecosystem.
Define AI-native development workflows and guide the team in adopting best practices for agentic development.
Establish architecture, engineering standards, and development practices across the Device SDK and Mobile Engineering teams.
Guide platform investments that improve developer experience, portability, performance, and scalability.
Partner with Research, Platform, and Product leadership to turn emerging capabilities into production-ready products and SDKs.
Participate in architecture reviews, technical design discussions, and critical implementation efforts.
Align architecture patterns with the Platform team to support a cohesive product ecosystem.
Balance long-term platform investments with near-term product commitments.
Ensure predictable delivery, high quality, and operational excellence across device-native products and platforms.
Contribute production code regularly and support implementation of complex features across mobile applications, SDKs, native runtimes, and platform integrations.
Review code, mentor engineers, participate in technical problem solving, and assist with debugging, performance analysis, and system optimization.
Maintain familiarity with day-to-day development workflows and remain actively engaged in execution.
Directly manage team leads and engineers in the Device SDK and Mobile Engineering teams.
Recruit, mentor, and retain high-performing engineers; support career growth, performance management, and technical development.
Foster engineering excellence, ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Build and maintain customer relationships, with occasional travel to client locations.