Software Engineering Manager

Yext•Washington, DC

19d•$148,500 - $303,500•Hybrid

About The Position

Yext (NYSE: YEXT) is the enterprise agentic marketing platform. Built on the world's most comprehensive structured data platform for local businesses, Yext gives brands and their partners the visibility intelligence to win every moment of discovery – across AI and traditional search. Yext's API-first architecture connects structured data to APIs, MCP servers, and generative interfaces, so partners and developers can build purpose-built experiences on the same infrastructure powering Yext's own products. Thousands of brands and digital marketing partners in financial services, healthcare, retail, hospitality, and food rely on Yext to manage, measure, and optimize visibility at scale. At Yext, Product Engineering builds and evolves the technology behind our products and services. We’re looking for engineering managers who want to lead strong teams, solve meaningful technical problems, and help shape what we build next. We work in an agile environment with two-week sprints and regular demos that keep teams aligned and give engineers clear visibility into the impact of their work. As an engineering manager, you’ll partner closely with Product and Engineering leaders to set direction, turn broader priorities into actionable plans, and create an environment where engineers can do their best work and continue to grow. We are looking for an engineering manager to lead Team Recon, which owns the customer-facing intelligence layer of our Competitive Intelligence product area. Recon builds the experiences that transform our competitive intelligence datasets into meaningful insights for customers. This includes analysis, visualizations, user interfaces, and agentic workflows. In short, the team builds the “brains” on top of the data pool and owns the surfaces through which customers explore, understand, and act on competitive intelligence. Engineers on Recon work across the product stack and solve open-ended problems at the intersection of data, AI, and user experience, turning complex information into clear, compelling, and useful products. This role is based in our Rosslyn, VA office, where in-person collaboration plays an important part in how our teams work, learn, and build relationships. We’re looking for people who genuinely value that environment and are comfortable coming into the office at least three days per week. At the same time, we don’t prescribe specific in-office days and want employees to have the flexibility to handle personal needs without disrupting their work or team collaboration.

Requirements

A BA/BS in Computer Science or a related field or equivalent college-level education
7+ years of professional software engineering experience
2+ years of experience leading a team of 3+ software engineers
Experience coaching engineers, providing direct and constructive feedback, and supporting their professional development
Experience translating product or business priorities into technical plans and driving a team toward successful delivery
The ability to stay technically engaged enough to guide design decisions, evaluate tradeoffs, and help engineers work through difficult problems
Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to create clarity when priorities or requirements are ambiguous
A track record of building healthy, effective engineering teams while holding a high bar for quality and accountability
Experience using AI-assisted development tools and the ability to evaluate their output critically as part of a responsible engineering workflow
Sound judgment regarding data privacy, intellectual property, security, and the appropriate use of confidential information when working with AI tools
Strong technical judgment and a foundation in software architecture, design, data structures, and algorithms
Fluency with Java, Go, C++, Python, or a similar programming language (we code primarily in Java and Go)
Experience recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding software engineers
Openness to new technologies, new ways of working, and creative solutions
Comfort working in a fast-paced environment

Responsibilities

Lead and develop a team of software engineers, providing regular coaching, actionable feedback, and support for their career growth
Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to translate product priorities and longer-term goals into clear, achievable plans for the team
Own the team’s execution and delivery, establishing priorities, breaking larger initiatives into manageable work, and maintaining a sustainable development cadence
Create clarity for the team by resolving ambiguity, removing blockers, managing competing priorities, and protecting engineers from unnecessary organizational churn and distractions
Maintain a strong technical understanding of the team’s systems and provide guidance on architecture, design, implementation, and technical tradeoffs
Foster a high bar for engineering quality through thoughtful design discussions, code reviews, testing, operational readiness, and continuous improvement
Ensure the team is prepared to respond effectively to production incidents, providing leadership and coordination during incidents and driving meaningful follow-up afterward
Build an environment where engineers take ownership, collaborate effectively, learn from one another, and feel comfortable raising concerns and challenging assumptions
Collaborate across Product Engineering and with partners throughout the company to coordinate dependencies, resolve issues, and deliver shared initiatives
Recruit and hire talented engineers, actively participate in the interview process, and build an effective onboarding experience for new team members
Identify opportunities to improve the team’s systems, processes, and ways of working, and help turn those opportunities into meaningful change
Model thoughtful use of AI-assisted development tools and help engineers incorporate AI effectively throughout design, research, implementation, testing, debugging, and code review
Maintain a high-quality bar for AI-assisted work by ensuring engineers understand and validate generated output and remain accountable for its correctness, security, maintainability, and alignment with engineering standards
Encourage experimentation with new AI capabilities and workflows, share successful approaches across the team, and help identify opportunities where AI can meaningfully improve engineering effectiveness