Engineering Manager

Sprout Social

About The Position

Sprout Social is looking to hire an Engineering Manager to join our Engineering team. Why join Sprout’s Engineering team? With collaborative, cross-functional teams that span mobile, front-end, back-end, and site reliability engineering—the Sprout Engineering team is a place to sharpen your craft and solve hard problems with the smartest people in the industry. You’ll get to work on a “tech-giant” scale, steering our engineering team to make an impact on our company and our customers. As a leader of a dynamic team, you will not only influence the architecture, design, and roadmap of your team, but also inform how our products and services interconnect. Join other empathetic leaders on our Engineering Leadership team who help each other grow and learn while we support and guide our teams to deliver world-class products. What you’ll do Build a high functioning, well-motivated engineering team and lead them to iteratively deliver quality results Leverage your experience in building and maintaining highly scalable and reliable software systems to grow and tune our software services stack. Grow your team of engineers by example with effective feedback, coaching, and career development. Lead the team through product and technical road maps, and partner with cross functional and engineering leaders to align on strategy, planning and execution for your team Drive consistent, high-quality execution by setting clear expectations, regularly tracking progress on deliverables, and proactively addressing challenges. Uphold standards for development and product quality for your team and support team’s on-call rotations Leverage data and metrics to monitor team performance, ensure accountability, establish KPIs to meet OKR and roadmap goals. What you’ll bring We’re looking for a results oriented, collaborative, pragmatic, inspiring engineering leader to help our teams succeed. If you’re passionate about leading teams to solve hard problems that deliver meaningful customer value, while fostering a culture of learning and collaboration, we’d love to talk with you! How you’ll grow Within 1 month, you’ll plant your roots, including: Complete Sprout Social’s new hire training & onboarding program alongside other new Sprout team members. You’ll gain a broader understanding of our products and how your role fits into the organization. Make a plan with your manager to set initial priorities, align on expectations for your role, plant goalposts for your career, and learn the team's current Mission, Goals, and Objectives along with future product roadmaps. Begin to understand the capabilities and limitations of our platform, web, and mobile technologies. Start to build relationships with the team. Start to learn the capabilities and limitations of the social network APIs we integrate with. Learn Sprout's management practices and tools. Deploy and make changes to our production systems. Provide regular technical guidance and feedback through code reviews. Establish a clear execution plan by identifying quick wins and aligning with the team on immediate priorities and goals. Develop an understanding of team workflows and identify any initial adjustments that could improve delivery efficiency. Within 3 months, you’ll start hitting your stride by: Implement early tracking and accountability measures to monitor team progress on key deliverables and address roadblocks as they arise. Set up regular execution reviews with your team to keep projects aligned with the roadmap and identify areas for process improvement. Participate in architectural discussions and decisions, asking the right questions to push your team to successful outcomes. Analyze trends with bugs and help the team identify where to best focus. Help the team shape the technical roadmap for long term success. Assume management of the engineers on your team, Identify career growth opportunities and work with them on goals. Start 1:1s with everyone on the team and continue building relationships. Help the team improve processes and team rituals. Build relationships with our infrastructure, product, and support teams and identify ways your team can be more proactive and effective. Successfully complete your first support week rotation. Within 6 months, you’ll be making a clear impact through: Ensure measurable progress on major deliverables, guiding your team to meet key milestones and adapt plans to address any execution challenges. Establish team-wide accountability by setting specific, actionable metrics for team performance, leveraging data to support continuous improvement. Guide your team through and contribute to the successful launch of a major feature. Understand the business goals and help the team balance technical debt, bugs, and product features. Start to grow your leaders and ensure they are focused on the right things. Lead performance review and career band calibration process for your team. Proactively focus your team on the right problems. Within 12 months, you’ll make this role your own by: Refine execution processes by standardizing successful workflows, ensuring consistent, high-quality delivery across projects. Champion a culture of continuous improvement, encouraging team members to proactively identify and resolve execution issues to maintain momentum on deliverables. Have development plans in place for your team and hold them accountable. Get acclimated to the hiring process and contribute to the recruitment and interviewing processes Surprise us! Use your unique ideas and abilities to change Sprout Engineering in beneficial ways that we haven’t even considered yet. Of course what is outlined above is the ideal timeline, but things may shift based on business needs and other projects and tasks could be added at the discretion of your manager.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in building, scaling, and maintaining enterprise level software systems in a production environment, with expertise in back-end development and a focus on high availability solutions.
4+ years of experience managing and leading high performing engineering teams, with a strong emphasis on delivery, execution, and achieving measurable business outcomes.
4+ years of experience delivering engineering projects and initiatives, including ensuring the delivery of a team’s roadmap, prioritizing technical improvements with cross-functional teams, and communicating progress with business stakeholders

Nice To Haves

Proven ability to drive strategic change within engineering teams, balancing short term delivery goals with long term technical sustainability and product growth.
Experience developing enterprise level distributed applications using distributed queuing systems, service-oriented architectures, etc.
Experience with data systems operating at scale, Elasticsearch, MySQL, HBase, etc.
Experience programming in an object oriented language such as Java, Python, C# or C++

Responsibilities

Build a high functioning, well-motivated engineering team and lead them to iteratively deliver quality results
Leverage your experience in building and maintaining highly scalable and reliable software systems to grow and tune our software services stack.
Grow your team of engineers by example with effective feedback, coaching, and career development.
Lead the team through product and technical road maps, and partner with cross functional and engineering leaders to align on strategy, planning and execution for your team
Drive consistent, high-quality execution by setting clear expectations, regularly tracking progress on deliverables, and proactively addressing challenges.
Uphold standards for development and product quality for your team and support team’s on-call rotations
Leverage data and metrics to monitor team performance, ensure accountability, establish KPIs to meet OKR and roadmap goals.

Benefits

Comprehensive Health & Wellness: Premium BCBSIL medical, dental (high/low plans), and vision (Eyemed) insurance for you and your eligible dependents.
Premium Mental Health Support: Full, free access to Modern Health for you and your dependents, including coaching, therapy sessions, and digital wellness resources.
Retirement Savings: 401(k) plan with a 50% company match on your first 6% of contributions (a 3% total match).
Financial Security: 100% employer-paid Life and Disability insurance for your peace of mind.
Flexible Paid Time Off: A flexible PTO policy, supplemented with additional company-wide Rest & Recharge days throughout the year.
Paid Parental Leave: Up to 16 weeks of paid leave for new parents to support you in expanding your family.
Annual Lifestyle Stipend: A $1,000 USD annual Lifestyle Spending Account to spend on your physical, mental, and financial well-being.
Work From Home Support: A one-time $550 USD stipend to set up your home office, plus a monthly $50 USD stipend for internet.
Giving Back: 16 hours of paid volunteer time annually, plus a $100 annual match for your charitable donations.
Additional Financial Perks: Access to pre-tax commuter benefits, subsidized child/eldercare (Care.com), discounted pet insurance (Figo), and no-cost personalized financial wellness support through Your Money Line.
Office Environment: Beautiful, convenient, and state-of-the-art offices in Chicago’s Loop and downtown Seattle