Software Engineering Manager, Public Sector

Scale AI•St. Louis, MO

21h•$162,400 - $270,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Scale AI’s Public Sector business is growing quickly as government agencies adopt AI to support critical national security, defense, and public sector missions. We’re looking for a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead a team of software engineers building core products and infrastructure for these customers. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in technical environments, enjoys managing teams while staying close to the code, and wants to work on meaningful problems that impact real world operations across the U.S. government. You’ll play a critical role in delivering backend systems, distributed platforms, and ML tooling used by our public sector partners—all while helping your team grow and execute. You’ll split your time between technical planning and execution (50%) and people management and team development (50%), leading a team of 6-8 engineers. You’ll work cross-functionally with product, security, and customer-facing teams to ensure our engineering efforts meet complex federal compliance, security, and performance needs. Must be able to commute to office three times per week.

Requirements

5+ years of full-time engineering experience, post-graduation
2+ years of prior engineering management or equivalent experience and has managed an engineering team.
Have extensive experience in software development
Experience scaling products at hyper-growth startups
Excitement to work with AI technologies and their applications for the public sector
Extremely strong track record as an individual contributor
Show a track record of mentoring and leading teams in successful projects
Possess excellent communication and collaboration skills, and the ability to translate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
Have or ability to obtain a TS/SCI clearance

Nice To Haves

TS/SCI Clearance
Deep technical knowledge of Software Development, willing to get deep into the weeds to solve problems alongside the team.
Have experience with AI platforms and technologies, including generative models and LLMs.
Have previous experience in government or government facing technology roles
Experience with cloud-native technologies, full stack development, data engineering, and ml ops infrastructure

Responsibilities

Recruit a high-performing engineering team.
Drive engineering productivity. Provide guidance, mentorship, and technical leadership to a team of engineers working on Generative AI projects.
Collaborating with cross-functional teams to define, design, and execute strategic roadmap.
Navigate and deliver outcomes while navigating through complex public sector compliance requirements and frameworks.
Design and implement scalable backend systems for Federal customers, leveraging Scale's modern and cloud-native AI infrastructure
Develop distributed systems, data-intensive applications, and machine learning infrastructure to enable real impact for mission owners
Build robust and reliable backend systems that can serve as standalone products, empowering customers to accelerate their own AI ambitions
Participate actively in customer engagements, working closely with stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver innovative solutions
Contribute to the platform roadmap and product strategy for Scale AI's Federal business, playing a key role in shaping the future direction of our offerings