Sr. Engineering Manager - Platform APIs

BambooHR

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Engineering Manager for Platform APIs will lead the PlatAPI team in building BambooHR’s next-generation API platform. This role oversees the engineering teams responsible for API standards, the API Gateway rollout, developer enablement tooling, authentication modernization, and the foundational infrastructure required to support AI-agent consumption of Bamboo’s APIs.
A typical day includes partnering with Product, Architecture, and other platform leaders to drive strategy; coaching engineers and tech leads; reviewing architectural decisions; unblocking cross-team dependencies; aligning rollout plans; and ensuring delivery quality. The Sr EM will play a central role in shaping BambooHR’s move toward a headless, API-first, AI-ready platform.

Requirements

• 7+ years in software engineering with 5+ years managing engineering teams; experience managing multiple teams or highly technical platform areas.
• Deep understanding of API architecture, versioning strategies, eventing/webhooks, authentication/authorization, and developer platform enablement.
• Experience driving platform modernization or leading teams through foundational technical rewrites (gateways, API ecosystems, schema evolution, etc.).
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills; able to partner with Product, Architecture, Data, and AI teams.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to translate complex technical strategy into actionable plans.
• Strong leadership abilities with a track record of developing engineers, senior engineers, and technical leaders.
• Proven ability to manage delivery across multiple initiatives, balance tradeoffs, and keep teams focused on highest-impact outcomes.
• Strong organizational skills; ability to maintain clarity across many moving pieces.
• Ability to thrive in a high-paced environment involving ambiguity, technical complexity, and cross-team dependencies.
• Proficient in modern development practices, CI/CD, DevOps, observability, and secure-by-design engineering.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building or scaling API platforms at a SaaS company.
• Prior work with API Gateways (e.g., Kong, Tyk, Apigee), GraphQL federation, or schema registries.
• Exposure to AI-agent architectures, LLM-driven API evaluation, or AI-readiness modeling.
• Experience working in platform engineering organizations or headless architecture transitions.
• Prior success managing PM-Engineering partnership structures for platform products.

Responsibilities

• Recruits, interviews, hires, and develops engineers, senior engineers, and staff-level engineers.
• Oversees the daily workflow, delivery cadence, and execution practices of the team.
• Provides structured, actionable feedback; performs timely and growth-oriented evaluations.
• Handles coaching, performance concerns, and disciplinary processes in partnership with HR.
• Manages up to two scrum teams or 12–18 engineers across backend and frontend disciplines.
• Lead the engineering team responsible for BambooHR’s Platform APIs, including API Gateway integration, API standards implementation, authentication upgrades, and developer enablement.
• Drive architectural alignment across multiple teams by partnering with Principal Engineers, Architects, and Product leaders.
• Elevate engineering quality through strong practices around versioning, schema evolution, authorization, observability, and platform health.
• Manage delivery of multi-team API features and platform rollouts with predictable execution and proactive risk mitigation.
• Build strong partnerships with Product, Program Management, Design, Data Engineering, and Agent Platform teams to ensure all stakeholders share context and direction.
• Support engineers’ growth through coaching, role clarity, technical leadership development, and performance accountability.
• Establish a culture of ownership, psychological safety, continuous improvement, and outcome-driven engineering.

Benefits

• A Great Company Culture that has been recognized by multiple organizations like Inc, and Salt Lake Tribune
• Comprehensive health, life, and disability insurance
• Generous leave policies that include 4 weeks of vacation, 12 company holidays, parental leave, and volunteer time off so you can enjoy quality of life
• 401k plans with up to 6% company match
• $2000 Paid-Paid Vacation bonus
• EAP through Headspace
• Check out all our benefits that benefit you

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees