Software Development Manager

IDEXX•Westbrook, ME

9d•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Software Development Manager, you will lead the Zookeepers engineering team within RADIXX Engineering, the infrastructure backbone of RADIXX. The team is responsible for production stability, security compliance, delivery automation, and AWS infrastructure health across a broad and growing product portfolio. You will provide leadership and direction for a multi-disciplinary team while helping shape the strategy, operations, and continued evolution of our technology organization. This role operates in a hybrid capacity, with team members onsite 2 days per week (8 days per month). The Zookeepers team plays a critical role in ensuring the reliability, security, and scalability of the RADIXX platform. As Software Development Manager, you will help balance operational excellence with strategic delivery, enabling engineering teams across the organization to build and deploy software with confidence. By leading the team responsible for infrastructure health, delivery automation, and production stability, you will directly influence the quality, performance, and resilience of solutions that support customers around the world.

Requirements

Leadership & Management skills
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
5-7+ years of people management experience in a software engineering environment with demonstrated leadership success
Ability to organize, prioritize, and direct work across a multi-discipline team including SRE, Development, QA, and DevOps functions
Experience managing dotted-line or matrix reporting relationships
Ability to manage escalated and critical issues calmly and decisively
General knowledge of software engineering operations, including infrastructure, delivery pipelines, and production support environments
Working knowledge of Java, C#, React, and Angular. While hands-on development is not required, you must be able to engage meaningfully with developers and technical leads on architecture, technical trade-offs, and delivery risks
Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building skills with the ability to effectively partner across product and engineering organizations
Strong verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical audiences and vice versa
Ability to manage expectations, communicate trade-offs clearly, and appropriately challenge decisions when needed
Strong reasoning, analytical, and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify root causes, resolve issues, and recommend improvements
Project management skills with the ability to track capacity, commitments, and delivery metrics across multiple workstreams
Proficiency with Microsoft Office and standard engineering collaboration tools

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with AWS infrastructure, security compliance programs, and SRE or platform engineering practices preferred
Awareness of AI/ML trends and tooling as applied to software engineering, including AI-assisted development, automation opportunities, and responsible adoption within engineering workflows

Responsibilities

Manage all activities of the Zookeepers engineering team, including SREs, Developers, and dotted-line DevOps and QA functions.
Plan and organize work, ensure adequate staffing and resources, and maintain delivery schedules that support production stability and customer satisfaction.
Manage staff by assigning work, monitoring activities, evaluating performance, administering employment actions, providing coaching and guidance, and supporting professional development and growth across the team.
Support development of team budgets, operating policies, and procedures, and coordinate work with outside vendors and contractors where applicable.
Triage and prioritize inbound requests from across the organization, including security initiatives, high-priority defects, AWS infrastructure requests, and compliance activities, ensuring the team remains focused on its core responsibilities.
Identify and implement strategies and operational efficiencies that enhance engineering reliability, delivery velocity, and internal customer experience while aligning team activities with RADIXX business objectives and engineering standards.
Communicate and collaborate with Product, Security, Infrastructure, and other engineering teams to coordinate work, resolve cross-functional issues, and support new and ongoing initiatives.
Lead and contribute to process improvements based on business needs and evaluation of existing procedures.
Leverage data, metrics, and system tools to drive efficiency, maximize reliability, and promote a culture of continuous improvement and delivery automation.
Identify problems, obstacles, and opportunities and proactively act to address them, including managing escalated and critical production issues.
Prepare reports and analyses that summarize team activities, production stability, delivery outcomes, and key operational metrics, communicating results to peer groups and senior leadership.