Sr. Engineering Manager

Recruiting From Scratch • San Francisco, CA

4d • Onsite

About The Position

This is an AI-focused technology company building products that transform complex professional documents into trustworthy structured data. The company's technology combines machine learning and generative AI to process highly complex documentation and deliver reliable data products to enterprise customers. The platform is used by some of the largest firms in the industry, creating an opportunity to work on AI-native products with meaningful customer and business impact. The company combines startup-style speed and technical ownership with the resources and scale of a larger technology organization. The engineering culture is hands-on and highly collaborative, with leadership expected to remain technically involved rather than operating purely as people managers. This role reports directly to the CTO and co-founder and will lead a team of senior, staff, and principal engineers. The ideal candidate is a player-coach who can manage and develop high-caliber engineers while continuing to write production code, review designs, and debug complex technical problems.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience.
• Formal engineering management experience is required.
• Experience as a Tech Lead Manager, Senior Engineering Manager, Director of Engineering, or equivalent.
• Experience managing approximately 2–10 direct reports.
• Experience managing senior, staff, or principal-level engineers.
• Demonstrated progression from individual contributor engineering into formal technical leadership.
• Experience building or leading external, customer-facing products.
• Strong track record at a technology company with a sophisticated engineering culture.
• Stable career progression and sustained ownership across roles.
• Strong backend, backend infrastructure, or backend-generalist engineering depth.
• Full-stack experience is welcome when there is a strong backend foundation.
• Current hands-on production coding experience.
• Strong system design and architecture skills.
• Experience reviewing technical designs and pull requests.
• Strong debugging and production problem-solving abilities.
• Experience making technical decisions for complex customer-facing products.
• Strong understanding of modern cloud infrastructure and distributed systems.
• Strong people leadership and coaching skills.
• Able to set clear expectations and provide direct, constructive feedback.
• Comfortable managing high-performing senior and staff-level engineers.
• Strong technical judgment and product judgment.
• Able to balance people leadership with hands-on technical contribution.
• Comfortable addressing performance issues directly and early.
• Strong hiring and team-building instincts.
• High ownership and accountability.
• Comfortable operating in a high-speed, high-expectation environment.
• Strong communication with executives, product leaders, engineers, and customers.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with AI/ML systems is a strong plus.
• Exposure to agentic systems, retrieval-based systems, document AI, or evaluation-driven development is preferred.
• Experience with Python and/or TypeScript is a plus.
• Familiarity with modern cloud infrastructure is a plus.
• Experience connecting technical decisions to customer adoption, product outcomes, or revenue.
• Strong understanding of building and scaling external-facing products.

Responsibilities

• Lead & Develop a High-Caliber Engineering Team: Manage 4–7 senior, staff, and principal-level engineers, with the team expected to scale to approximately 10–12 engineers. Set clear expectations, provide direct feedback, and coach engineers toward greater technical and product ownership. Develop senior engineers into technical leaders and future managers. Address performance issues early and create a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. Build a high-talent-density engineering organization through thoughtful hiring, onboarding, and development. Lead the team while maintaining a strong hands-on technical presence.
• Stay Hands-On With Production Engineering: Continue writing production software on a regular basis. Review designs and pull requests and contribute directly to important architectural decisions. Debug complex production issues alongside senior and staff engineers. Maintain strong technical credibility with the engineering team through active contribution. Help establish engineering standards around code quality, architecture, testing, and technical execution. Balance technical contribution with team leadership and organizational responsibilities.
• Build & Ship Customer-Facing AI Products: Lead the development of AI-native products that transform complex unstructured documents into reliable structured data. Guide the team in building customer-facing, evaluation-driven AI systems. Partner closely with product and customer-facing teams to make strong technical and product decisions. Connect engineering priorities to measurable customer and business outcomes such as adoption, product value, and revenue. Help the team move quickly from concept to production while maintaining reliability and quality. Contribute to AI systems involving document intelligence, retrieval, evaluation, and related machine learning workflows.
• Scale the Engineering Organization & Technical Strategy: Own hiring, onboarding, and team growth as the engineering organization expands. Help define the team's technical strategy and engineering roadmap. Work directly with the CTO and other senior leaders on organizational and technical priorities. Build processes that allow a high-performing engineering team to scale without sacrificing technical quality. Manage the transition between startup-style execution and enterprise-scale engineering. Ensure the team remains focused on high-impact customer problems and maintains strong execution velocity.

Benefits

• $415,000 – $450,000 base salary.
• Flexibility for exceptional candidates, with potential compensation above $500,000.
• Competitive equity / RSU package.
• Total compensation can reach $1M+ depending on equity and overall package.
• Full-time position in San Francisco.
• On-site 5 days per week in Downtown San Francisco.
• Remote work limited to approximately 10 days per year.
• Opportunity to lead a high-caliber engineering team while remaining hands-on technically.
• Startup-style ownership combined with enterprise-scale resources and customer impact.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed