Sr Manager, Software Engineering

PayPal•San Jose, CA

7d•$178,500 - $291,500•Hybrid

About The Position

We’re looking for a Senior Engineering Manager to help shape the future of Commerce at Venmo. Millions of people already use Venmo to pay businesses, whether they’re paying a local business in the Venmo app or using Pay with Venmo at checkout. And we believe there’s a much bigger opportunity ahead. You’ll own engineering for a big part of that experience. You’ll partner closely with Product and Design to define what we build, set the technical direction with your engineering team, and turn ideas into products that operate at Venmo scale. This isn’t a role where everything is already mapped out. We have clear business goals and a strong foundation, but there are still important product and technical questions to answer. We’re looking for someone who is comfortable with that ambiguity and wants to help chart the course.

Requirements

8+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.
Experience leading others
Significant experience leading software engineering teams and delivering complex products at scale
A track record of building, developing, and retaining strong engineering teams
Strong technical judgment. You don’t need to be writing code every day, but you should be able to go deep when needed, ask the right questions, and guide teams through difficult architecture and engineering decisions
Experience building large-scale distributed systems and familiarity with modern mobile, web, and backend architectures
Experience taking products or major capabilities from idea through launch, iteration, and scale
Strong product instincts and a customer-first mindset. You think about the problem we’re solving before the technology we’re using to solve it
AI fluency and hands-on experience using modern AI tools in software development. You understand their strengths and limitations and can help a team adopt them thoughtfully to improve engineering velocity and quality
Comfort operating in ambiguity, bringing structure to complex problems, and adjusting as customer and business priorities evolve
Strong cross-functional leadership skills and the ability to build trust with Product, Design, business, and engineering partners
Clear communication and the ability to explain complex technical decisions to different audiences
A consistent track record of delivering on commitments without sacrificing engineering quality or the health of the team

Nice To Haves

Experience with payments, fintech, or other highly available financial systems
Experience building consumer products at significant scale
Background in commerce, marketplaces, social products, or platform businesses
Experience building products or tools for merchants and small businesses
Experience working in both fast-moving and large-scale engineering environments
Experience leading teams across multiple locations or time zones

Responsibilities

Manages multiple projects through direct reports and may directly manage individual software development projects. Ensures project delivery through supervision of costs, methods, and staffing
Sets operational targets that impact their group and drives operational rigor around engineering KPIs such as unit test coverage, uptime/resiliency targets, execution velocity
Responsible for the delivery of projects and continuous improvement that impact up to three domains
Leads the effort in resolving highly complex or unique technical situations that impact business success or addresses future concepts, products, or technologies
Creates the roadmap for multiple scrum teams. Responsible for turning a high-level operational strategy into a well-defined resourcing plan
Demonstrates perseverance in pursuing difficult, complex, or ambiguous goals or problems, applying advanced analytical thought and judgment.
Collaborates with direct team, managers in org, stakeholders, managers in other orgs and business stakeholders
Lead and develop an engineering team responsible for building and scaling Venmo Commerce products used by millions of customers and businesses
Partner closely with Product, Design, Analytics, and business teams to identify customer problems, shape the roadmap, and turn ideas into products
Own the technical direction for your area, working with senior engineers and architects to make decisions that balance speed, simplicity, reliability, and long-term scale
Build a strong team through hiring, coaching, regular feedback, career development, and thoughtful organizational design
Give engineers clear ownership and the context and autonomy to make good decisions
Drive execution across complex initiatives, identify risks early, and help the team navigate dependencies and changing priorities
Maintain a high bar for engineering quality, reliability, security, and operational excellence
Make thoughtful trade-offs when there isn’t an obvious answer and communicate those decisions clearly
Work across Venmo and PayPal when solving problems that span products, platforms, or organizations
Build a culture where people challenge assumptions, learn quickly, take ownership, and care deeply about the customer experience
Help the team use AI effectively in how we build software, from development and testing to debugging and operations, while applying good judgment about where AI adds value and where it doesn’t