Manager, Engineering - Mobile

Linden Lab•San Francisco, CA

1d•$165,000 - $223,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Our Story and Purpose Linden Lab develops platforms that empower people to create, connect, and thrive through transformative virtual experiences. Since our founding in 1999, we have been at the forefront of the creator economy, building durable platforms that support limitless imagination, self-expression, and human connection. In 2003, we launched Second Life, a vibrant, user-driven virtual world that has grown into a living global community. Hundreds of thousands of people actively spend time there, building relationships, expressing themselves, and creating meaning together. With over two billion user creations and a flourishing $650 million economy, Second Life enables people not only to connect, but for those who choose, to build real livelihoods through their creativity. Unlike traditional social media, Second Life fosters sustained, positive connection between strangers. It offers mobility, agency, and community to people whose real-world circumstances may limit their options, and it creates space for belonging, collaboration, and shared purpose. For many, it is not just a platform, but a place where they can participate fully and authentically. The same principles that shape our communities also guide how we work together. We believe our strength lies in diversity of perspectives, experiences, and ideas. Our values are rooted in organizational health, strengths-based leadership, and the belief that collaborative teams are stronger than individuals. At Linden Lab, your work directly shapes how real people connect, create, and build meaningful lives online. You will be part of a thoughtful, mission-driven team working on technology with real social impact and uncommon longevity. Whether you are building innovative tools or fostering a welcoming community, you will find a place to belong, grow, and do work that matters. We invite you to come as you are. Your Mission This role follows a Monday through Thursday in-office schedule at our San Francisco headquarters, with Fridays designated as a remote workday. We’re looking for an Engineering Manager, an active technical contributor, who will lead and grow a high-performing mobile engineering team through hands-on technical leadership and strong people management, guiding the evolution of Second Life’s mobile experience. In this individual contributor and people management role, reporting to the SVP of Engineering, you’ll translate organizational priorities into clear, executable plans while remaining deeply engaged in mobile architecture, design, implementation, and day-to-day technical decisions. You’ll lead a hybrid team of internal engineers and external partners, help transform a complex, legacy-rich platform into an accessible, modern mobile product, collaborate closely with Product, Design, Platform Engineering, and external partners to drive architectural direction, and create an environment where engineers do their best work by setting expectations, removing blockers, coaching talent, and fostering accountability, trust, and continuous learning. How You’ll Grow With Us At the Lab, you'll experience the best of both worlds: the stability of an established company with over 20 years of expertise and the dynamic momentum of a startup driven by continuous progress. You'll have the unparalleled opportunity to forge meaningful relationships, design impactful systems, and craft strategies that shape the future of virtual experiences. Our vibrant in-office environment in San Francisco is designed to foster creativity, collaboration, and ingenuity. With spaces purpose-built for brainstorming, team building, and spontaneous conversations, you'll find endless opportunities to engage and grow. We believe in the power of in-person connections to cultivate a strong sense of community and inclusion, ensuring that your ideas are valued, your contributions celebrated, and your impact deeply felt every day.

Requirements

7–10+ years of professional software engineering experience with prior senior IC background, plus 3+ years leading or managing engineers with responsibility for delivery and people development; demonstrated success coaching, mentoring, performance managing, hiring (including sourcing from personal and professional networks), interviewing, onboarding, and developing engineers through regular feedback and goal setting.
Strong hands-on technical background with the ability to design, write, review, and ship production-quality code; proven ability to lead technical discussions, evaluate tradeoffs, guide sound engineering decisions, and plan, prioritize, and deliver work in collaboration with Product and Design partners.
Strong communication skills with the ability to clearly articulate priorities, risks, and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders, including executive leadership.
Proven experience launching and operating multiple production mobile applications, with required cross-platform development experience using Unity and C#.
Strong experience with modern web frameworks (React, Vue), real-time or complex rendering pipelines, analytics and engagement tools (Amplitude, OneSignal), and deploying and operating applications on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with virtual worlds or large-scale interactive environments strongly preferred.
Experience contributing to or shaping the strategic direction of AI initiatives aligned with business objectives, paired with demonstrated curiosity and hands-on experimentation with emerging AI capabilities to solve complex problems and enable new user experiences.

Responsibilities

Deliver high-quality mobile experiences by owning app quality, performance, and developer velocity.
Guide technical direction through sound judgment, early risk identification, and thoughtful tradeoffs between scope, quality, and delivery.
Develop engineers through regular feedback, career support, and hiring to build a strong, balanced team.
Partner closely with Product, Design, Backend, QA, and Infrastructure to drive cohesive execution.
Contribute to mobile engineering standards and best practices across teams.
Lead and grow the mobile engineering team, including both internal engineers and external contractors, with a focus on technical excellence, clarity, and accountability.
Act as a hands-on technical leader: reviewing designs, leading architectural discussions, making specific recommendations, and staying close to the code.
Evaluate the current mobile architecture (Unity client, React-based UI layer, proxy services connecting to existing Second Life backend services) and recommend improvements that balance performance, scalability, and development velocity.
Partner deeply with UX and Product to translate product vision into executable technical plans, milestones, and tradeoffs.
Partner with Product to own delivery of the mobile app: planning, execution, quality, release readiness, and post-launch learning.
Play a key role in growing and shaping the mobile engineering team.
Collaborate closely with Marketing to build out acquisition, engagement, and experimentation pathways.
Key deliverables include but are not limited to, roadmaps, gantt charts, decision support materials, executive presentations, weekly status reports, vendor relationships, employee development materials. Additionally: App store crash rates, overall ratings, performance, memory usage, operational costs, DAU, MAU, Retention, Concurrency, Monetization.