Engineering Manager

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for an Engineering Manager based in the United States.

As an Engineering Manager, you will lead the people-management function for a distributed engineering team, initially overseeing seven direct reports. You will focus on developing talent, strengthening team engagement, managing performance, and ensuring engineers are effectively staffed across internal initiatives and client engagements. Working closely with senior leadership, HR, and technical stakeholders, you will oversee workforce planning, career development, recruitment, and retention. This role combines strategic resource management with hands-on coaching and employee support. You will help build a respectful, remote-first culture while ensuring staffing decisions balance business priorities with individual growth and wellbeing. The position is ideal for an experienced engineering leader who excels at people management rather than hands-on coding or technical architecture ownership.

Accountabilities

You will own the people operations and staffing strategy for the engineering team, ensuring employees receive consistent guidance, development opportunities, and appropriate support while meeting organizational workforce needs. Your responsibilities will include:

• Directly manage an initial team of seven engineers through regular one-on-one meetings, goal setting, constructive feedback, coaching, and individualized development plans.

• Lead performance reviews, evaluation calibration, and fair assessments based on the established engineering career and leveling framework.

• Identify and address performance concerns promptly, working with HR when necessary to ensure appropriate and consistent outcomes.

• Partner with senior leadership on compensation and career progression decisions, then manage their communication, documentation, and implementation in accordance with company policies.

• Build and maintain a respectful, remote-first team culture that supports engagement, collaboration, and professional growth.

• Monitor workload, employee wellbeing, burnout risks, retention, and career-development needs, taking action before issues escalate.

• Develop current and future staffing plans across internal projects and client engagements, considering employee skills, experience levels, assignments, availability, allocation, and expected project transitions.

• Balance utilization and business requirements with individual development, workload, and employee wellbeing.

• Resolve staffing conflicts in collaboration with project, delivery, and engineering-domain leaders.

• Forecast capacity requirements, recruitment needs, available resources, bench time, and key-person dependencies, communicating potential risks and recommendations to senior leadership.

• Collaborate with HR and recruiting teams to define roles, manage recruitment requests, structure interviews, support hiring decisions, and coordinate onboarding.

• Establish consistent employee evaluation, mentorship, and development practices across the engineering organization.

• Maintain accurate headcount and personnel records while reporting key workforce metrics, including utilization, staffing forecasts, attrition, hiring progress, and development activity.

• Improve people-management and staffing processes through documented workflows, effective communication, and appropriate management tools.

• Handle confidential employee information responsibly and maintain discretion in sensitive personnel matters.

Requirements

The ideal candidate has a strong background in software engineering or technical delivery, combined with proven experience managing engineers and overseeing workforce planning. You should be confident handling sensitive personnel matters, developing technical talent, and coordinating staffing across multiple projects. Candidates should demonstrate:

• At least 7 years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, or technical delivery.

• A minimum of 3 years of direct engineering-management experience, including responsibility for hiring, performance reviews, coaching, and personnel decisions.

• Demonstrated success staffing engineers across multiple simultaneous projects or client engagements.

• Experience managing resource allocation, capacity planning, utilization, or comparable workforce-planning metrics.

• Experience leading structured performance reviews and calibration processes using an established engineering career or leveling framework.

• Sufficient technical knowledge of modern software development and cloud environments to assess engineering skills, workloads, and staffing risks credibly.

• The ability to develop engineers, support career progression, and implement effective retention and mentorship initiatives.

• Strong judgment and experience navigating difficult performance conversations and sensitive employee situations.

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