Engineering Manager: New Intiative

Kikoff•San Francisco, CA

27d•$307,000 - $352,000

About The Position

Kikoff is one of the fastest-growing consumer fintech apps in the US, already serving millions of Americans. This role leads a dedicated team working on one of Kikoff's most important product initiatives with real autonomy, high visibility, and a direct line to the company's long-term growth story. As Engineering Manager, you will start with a team of 4 engineers and grow it to ~8 by end of year. You will set the technical direction, hire and develop the team, and partner closely with product and design to take this initiative from early stages to full scale. This is a player-coach role at the start. You will be close to the code, close to product decisions, and close to the people. As the team grows, you will shift toward leading through others — but the technical foundation you set early will matter. If you want a role where your decisions shape a product from day one, where your team's work reaches millions of users, and where strong execution today shapes a company that millions of people depend on - this is it.

Requirements

5+ years of software engineering experience with a strong backend or full-stack foundation: you can review code, make architecture decisions, and contribute directly when needed
2+ years of engineering management experience, ideally with time building a new product or feature from scratch
A track record of shipping: you have taken products from idea to production and know what it takes to keep quality high while moving fast
Experience hiring and developing engineers: you know what good looks like, and you have a process for finding and growing it
Strong product sense: you care about the "why" as much as the "how", and you can hold a product point of view even without a PM in the room
Comfort operating with ambiguity and incomplete information: you know how to make good decisions before all the facts are in
Clear, direct communication with your team, with leadership, and with cross-functional partners

Nice To Haves

Experience in consumer fintech, consumer mobile, or subscription products
Familiarity with Ruby on Rails, Flutter, and/or React
Experience building on top of an existing platform or within a shared ecosystem
Background at a company at a similar stage - profitable, scaling fast, pre-IPO

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, and develop a team of 4 engineers, with a plan to grow to ~8 by end of year
Hire strong engineers who thrive in ambiguity, take ownership of outcomes, and care about craft
Build a highly collaborative team environment where engineers have real ownership, do high-impact work, and grow faster because they are surrounded by great people and genuinely difficult problems
Be hands-on early: reviewing code, making architecture calls, unblocking the team directly when needed
Define the architecture and foundational technical decisions for a new product built on Kikoff's existing platform
Uphold high engineering standards: code quality, testing discipline, system reliability, and safe deployments
Partner with Kikoff's app platform and foundation teams to build on shared, well-maintained infrastructure
Work closely with product and design to turn ambiguous problems into scoped, shippable work
Own the technical roadmap and ensure the team is always working on the highest-impact problems
Be a genuine collaborative partner to product and design - bring engineering creativity to open problems, surface possibilities they have not considered, and stay curious about their perspective and user insights
Think in terms of outcomes for users and the business, not just features shipped