Senior Development Manager, Middleware

The Subway HR Team•Shelton, CT

7d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Development Manager, Middleware leads a team of senior engineers and solution architects building the API and integration layer at the heart of Subway’s digital guest experience. You are accountable for team delivery, technical health, and talent development — balancing hands-on technical judgment with people leadership across a high-stakes production platform serving millions of transactions daily. You will report directly to the VP of Guest Engineering and serve as a key member of the Guest Engineering leadership team.

Requirements

Hands-on background in backend/API development with genuine fluency in AWS serverless architectures (Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SQS, SNS, EventBridge); Node.js/TypeScript strongly preferred.
Working familiarity with Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) — sufficient to review integration designs, contribute to technical discussions, and evaluate delivery risk.
Demonstrated commitment to AI-assisted development: active use of AI coding tools and ability to coach a team on integrating them effectively into daily engineering practice.
Solid understanding of REST API design, OpenAPI specification, OAuth 2.0/JWT authentication, and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) practices.
Comfort with CI/CD pipelines and release engineering concepts (Azure DevOps preferred); ability to reason about deployment risk and blast radius across a distributed serverless platform.
Ability to engage credibly in architecture reviews, API governance discussions, and production incident retrospectives alongside senior individual contributors.
Track record of growing senior engineers, navigating difficult performance conversations, and building inclusive, high-accountability team cultures.
Strong delivery instincts: proven experience managing scope, risk, and dependencies in complex multi-team programs.
Comfortable operating in ambiguity; able to translate business goals into engineering priorities without heavy top-down structure.
Effective communicator across audiences — from engineering ICs to VP-level stakeholders — with a clear, concise written and verbal style.
Collaborative by default: proactive in surfacing blockers, sharing context across teams, and building trust with peer managers and product counterparts.
7+ years of software engineering experience; 2+ years in an engineering management or senior technical lead role with direct accountability for team delivery.
Proven track record managing a team of 6+ senior engineers, including performance management, career development, and hiring.
Demonstrated experience in backend/API or middleware engineering; sufficient technical depth to earn credibility with and effectively lead senior ICs.
Experience managing complex programs with cross-team dependencies, external vendor integrations, and competing priorities.
Active user of AI-assisted development tooling with hands-on familiarity sufficient to set team standards and coach engineers.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Nice To Haves

Experience managing hybrid teams (FTE + staff augmentation) across multiple vendors.
Broader Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) familiarity across multiple products and use cases.
Familiarity with QSR, restaurant technology, or high-volume consumer e-commerce platforms.
Experience with AWS Cognito, identity federation, or OAuth/OIDC platform migrations.
AWS certifications (Solutions Architect, Developer) or relevant Adobe Experience Cloud certifications.

Responsibilities

Lead delivery for a team of 8–12 engineers across middleware service domains; own sprint planning, backlog health, dependency management, and quarterly roadmap commitments in collaboration with the VP of Guest Engineering.
Provide technical guidance and career development for direct reports; conduct regular 1:1s, set clear performance expectations, and actively build a high-trust, high-accountability team culture.
Serve as an escalation point for production incidents and cross-team technical decisions; partner with Solution Architects on architecture reviews, API governance, and platform evolution strategy — including middleware integrations with Adobe Experience Platform (AEP).
Champion AI-assisted development across the team: establish standards for AI tooling adoption, model responsible use, and incorporate AI-augmented workflows into code review, test coverage, and delivery acceleration practices.
Drive hiring and team composition: own job description creation, candidate assessment, and onboarding for FTE and staff augmentation engineers in partnership with HR and vendor partners.
Collaborate with peer managers (Mobile, Web, QE) and cross-functional partners (Product, MarTech, Identity) to align delivery priorities and resolve cross-team blockers.