Senior Engineering Manager - Experience Foundations

Confluent

59d

About The Position

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them. It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together. One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform. About the Role: We're seeking a hands-on Full stack Senior Engineering Manager to join our Experience Foundations team. This team owns critical TEAR (Trusted Experiences Access & Revenue) domains including Security UI, Networking UI, and Billing UI, as well as the shared experience foundations infrastructure (formerly UIF/UI Foundations team). You'll lead the evolution of our foundations infrastructure from UI-only support to serving the entire Experience organization which includes several other interfaces (API/CLI/TF/VSCode/MCP). Along with this you will help establish patterns and best practices that enable UI engineers to confidently develop security and networking features across our application portfolio—including Governance, Flink, Kafka, Connect, and Tableflow. In this role, you'll also support the evolution of Networking, Security, and Billing UI experiences, especially as we adopt and integrate the latest and greatest technologies in these domains. As cloud providers introduce new networking capabilities, security standards evolve, and billing models become more sophisticated, you'll ensure our UI stays at the forefront—providing intuitive, scalable interfaces that make complex technical capabilities accessible to our customers. The Experience Foundations team owns several critical pillars: Security: User authentication, authorization, and security experiences (RBAC, BYOK, SSO, API keys, encryption management) Networking: Network configuration and connectivity interfaces (private networking, VPC peering, PrivateLink across AWS, GCP, Azure) Billing UI: Revenue-critical billing and payment experiences (subscription models, multi-month commits, promotional offers, chargebacks, usage tracking Experience Foundations Infrastructure: Shared UI/UX infrastructure and tooling (formerly UIF/UI Foundations), this includes our design system, compliance support, experience performance, accessibility and more. These capabilities sit at the intersection of trust, infrastructure control, and revenue generation—foundational pillars that support our entire application ecosystem across Governance, Flink, Kafka, Connect, Tableflow, and future products. Your work will enable UX engineers across our entire application portfolio to build consistent, high-quality security and networking experiences. By establishing clear patterns and evolving our foundations infrastructure, you'll multiply the impact of every engineer working on Governance, Flink, Kafka, Connect, Tableflow, and future products—while supporting the foundational pillars that drive over 70% of Confluent's revenue. If you're energized by the challenge of transforming foundations infrastructure while elevating engineering capabilities across critical product domains, we'd love to talk.

Requirements

8+ years of software engineering experience with 4+ years in engineering management
Strong hands-on technical background with ability to dive deep into complex systems
Deep frontend engineering expertise: Strong understanding of modern web development (React, TypeScript, component design systems)
Proven ability to distill complex technical domains into clear patterns and best practices
Experience creating reusable patterns/frameworks adopted across multiple teams or products
Track record of elevating team capabilities through mentorship and knowledge sharing
Demonstrated success partnering with Product and Design to drive execution
Experience managing or collaborating closely with other engineering managers
Strong communication skills and ability to influence across organizational boundaries
Experience managing multiple product areas or technical domains simultaneously

Nice To Haves

Experience managing managers or leading leaders
Domain knowledge in at least one TEAR area: Security (RBAC, SSO, BYOK, encryption), Networking (VPC, PrivateLink, routing), or Billing/Payments (subscription models, usage tracking)
Experience evolving platform teams to serve broader organizational needs
Proficient with or highly curious about AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, etc.)
Track record of driving developer productivity improvements through tooling, automation, or process innovation

Responsibilities

Establish clear, reusable patterns and best practices for UI engineers developing security and networking code
Elevate the impact of all UI engineers across multiple product teams (Governance, Flink, Kafka, Connect, Tableflow)
Take a depth-first, hands-on approach to understanding systems and unblocking teams
Go deep in domain areas—understand the technical intricacies of networking protocols, security models, and billing systems to make sound architectural decisions
Drive the evolution of Experience Foundations infrastructure from UI-only to supporting the entire Experience organization, partner with the existing Engineering Manager to shape and execute the foundations roadmap
Own PM and Design partnerships for Security, Networking, and Billing domains
Ensure smooth execution and delivery of product initiatives across these verticals
Bridge technical and product perspectives to drive aligned outcomes
Translate domain complexity into clear execution plans
Challenge product specs when necessary to ensure technical feasibility
Partner with product teams across the portfolio to ensure patterns meet their needs
Communicate progress, risks, and trade-offs transparently to senior leadership
Collaborate with existing engineering leadership to build cohesive team strategy, including existing manager in the foundations space as your direct report
Mentor and develop engineers across multiple disciplines and experience levels
Foster a culture of ownership, excellence, and continuous improvement
Create leverage by empowering engineers with patterns, tools, and knowledge
Build strong connections between Experience Foundations and application teams
Champion developer productivity through AI tooling adoption, test automation, and improved engineering processes