Software Engineering Manager (Full-Stack)

DIESEL LAPTOPS LLC

1d•Remote

About The Position

At Diesel Laptops, we are dedicated to revolutionizing the commercial truck and off-highway vehicle repair industry. Since our inception, we have been committed to providing cutting-edge diagnostic tools, repair information, and world-class training to our clients. Our mission is to empower technicians and repair facilities with the knowledge and tools they need to efficiently diagnose and repair vehicles, ultimately reducing downtime and improving profitability. At Diesel Laptops, we pride ourselves on fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment where every team member is valued and has the opportunity to grow. We are seeking a hands-on Software Engineering Manager to lead a team of full-stack engineers building and operating real-time, data-driven applications. This role follows an 80/20 management-to-IC split, with primary responsibility for team leadership, delivery, and engineering quality, while remaining technically engaged through targeted contributions. This role emphasizes building and scaling high-quality systems, while also helping evolve our existing architecture over time. Much of our application logic today lives in Python within the web layer, handling complex data querying and transformation. You will guide the team in structuring this logic into clean, maintainable patterns, with a strong focus on data modeling, data integrity, and system clarity. As part of ongoing platform improvements, you will also support the team in incrementally modernizing the system, including simplifying or consolidating legacy components where appropriate. The ideal candidate is a strong technical leader who can both develop engineers and bring clarity to complex systems, improving reliability, maintainability, and developer experience over time.

Requirements

5+ years of full-stack software engineering experience
Experience with backend systems using Python for data processing and transformation logic
1+ years of engineering management or strong technical leadership experience
Production experience with: Backend: Django (preferred), or Rails / Spring Boot
Frontend: React (TanStack ecosystem a strong plus), React Native (Expo ecosystem a strong plus)
APIs: RESTful design and integration
Databases: SQL (Postgres preferred)
Proven ability to lead teams while staying technically credible

Nice To Haves

Experience with real-time or data-driven systems
Familiarity with ML/data-integrated applications
Ability to decompose and consolidate distributed logic into maintainable application services
Exposure to cloud infrastructure and CI/CD systems
Experience improving engineering processes and team performance

Responsibilities

Manage and mentor a team of 5–7 engineers across frontend, backend, and full-stack domains
Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development planning
Own team technical delivery against product and platform priorities
Maintain and continuously improve engineering standards, code quality expectations, and review practices
Work directly with Project Manager to drive sprint planning, prioritization, and execution consistency
Partner with Product, Data, and DevOps teams on cross-functional initiatives
Support hiring, onboarding, and contractor management
Contribute selectively to production code in high-impact areas
Lead design and architectural decisions across full stack development
Perform high-quality code reviews across React, React Native, Django, and related frameworks
Set technical direction and patterns for the team (not primary feature ownership)
Step in on critical issues, incidents, or high-risk deliverables
Guide backend architecture with a focus on data modeling, schema design, and reliable data transformations, particularly in Python-based application logic, ensuring clean system boundaries and consistency across services
Shape frontend architecture (React, TanStack ecosystem preferred)
Contribute to mobile strategy (React Native or Flutter)
Ensure clean integration with data pipelines and ML-driven systems
Promote API-first and modular design principles
Support the gradual migration away from AWS Lambdas and PHP services
Support safe migration of functionality into the core application stack (Django / Python)
Ensure continuity of business logic while improving maintainability and observability
Identify opportunities to simplify, consolidate, or eliminate redundant services
Improve delivery predictability and reduce bottlenecks
Ensure high-quality releases with proper testing and observability
Balance feature delivery with technical debt and platform investments
Drive accountability and ownership within the team