Senior Manager, Software Engineering (SMB)

NerdWallet

91d•Remote

About The Position

At NerdWallet, we’re on a mission to bring clarity to all of life’s financial decisions, and every great mission needs a team of exceptional Nerds. We’ve built an inclusive, flexible, and candid culture where you’re empowered to grow, take smart risks, and be unapologetically yourself (cape optional). Whether remote or in-office, we support how you thrive best. We invest in your well-being, development, and ability to make an impact because when one Nerd levels up, we all do. NerdWallet is looking for an experienced Senior Manager, Software Engineering to lead and oversee multiple full-stack engineering teams to ensure successful design, development, and delivery of high quality products for the SMB (Small and Medium Business) team at NerdWallet. The Senior Manager, Software Engineering role will act as a key technical leader and direct the strategy and evolution of a mature product. In this role you will identify subtle, but high-impact areas for innovation and expansion that maximize business value. You will leverage your strong technical judgment and data architecture fluency to ensure that systems are scalable, reliable, and built for growth. You’re comfortable diving into code and product reviews when needed, setting a high bar for engineering excellence. As the technical expert, you will help stakeholders at all levels across engineering, product, and business teams connect the dots between technical execution and business objectives in order to drive prioritization to ensure that the team moves quickly from ideation to impact and know when to make trade-offs between speed and quality and/or knowing when to prioritize experimentation or stability. This role reports to the Director, Product Management.

Requirements

8+ years of experience within the software engineering industry, including as an IC and engineering manager with 5+ years managing engineers.
Strong technical background and analytical abilities.
Experience in developing commercially successful web applications, at scale, using Ruby on Rails. Others like React, Next.js, Astro, GraphQL, and modern JavaScript languages like TypeScript, are nice to have.
Experience engaging in knowledgeable discussions about systems architecture, data flows, and data structures specifically a long standing Ruby on Rails application.
Experience working in a fast-paced company navigating ambiguity.
Strong background in project management, with a proven track record of managing and delivering complex engineering projects at scale and on time.
Past coding experience on consumer-focused teams.
Strong problem solving and decision making abilities.
Strong organizational and time management skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience in Cloud based technologies like AWS.
Experience in scrum and sprint processes.
Ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment.
Commitment to continuous learning and professional development.

Responsibilities

Lead and mentor a high-performing team of 12+ software engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and collaboration.
Partner with Product and Senior Leadership, to develop a business strategy and long-term roadmap for an entire platform and product portfolio, balancing stability, maintenance, and strategic innovation.
Oversee the design, development, testing, and deployment of complex, high-volume, and reliable systems that meet rigorous quality standards.
Maintain and improve operational excellence (monitoring, SLAs, post-mortems, etc.).
Manage engineers' career paths and performance through setting objectives, regular feedback, and technical mentorship, sharing best practices.
Establish a robust, data-centric strategy for identifying, quantifying, and eliminating yield/efficiency detractors within the product's operational flows.
Partner closely with Product Management to implement the necessary data infrastructure, pipelines, and tooling to capture granular operational metrics that directly inform yield.
Drive the execution of engineering projects specifically aimed at increasing business yield (e.g., optimizing resource allocation, reducing transaction failure rates, improving throughput, lowering latency/cost) based on newly derived data insights.
Translate complex business goals related to yield and efficiency into clear, executable technical requirements and engineering deliverables.
Champion best practices in engineering, including code review, performance tuning, system reliability, and disaster recovery.

Benefits

Industry-leading medical, dental, and vision health care plans for employees and their dependents
Rejuvenation Policy – Flexible Vacation Time Off + 11 holidays + holiday company shutdown
New Parent Leave for employees with a newborn child or a child placed with them for adoption or foster care
Mental health support
Paid sabbatical after 5 years for Nerds to recharge, gain knowledge, and pursue their interests
Health and Dependent Care FSA and HSA Plan with monthly NerdWallet contribution
Monthly Wellness Stipend, Cell Phone Stipend, and Wifi Stipend (Only remote Nerds are eligible for the Wifi Stipend)
Work from home equipment stipend and co-working space subsidy (Only remote Nerds are eligible for these stipends)
401K with 4% company match
Be the first to test and benefit from our new financial products and tools
Financial wellness, guidance, and unlimited access to a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) through Northstar
Disability and Life Insurance with employer-paid premiums