We9re hiring an Engineering Lead to own one of ClassDojo9s product engineering areas end-to-end.

As the Engineering Lead for one of our core product strategy areas, you9ll manage the engineering managers in your area, co-own outcomes with PM and Design counterparts, set engineering practices and quality across teams, and act as a demanding internal customer to our peer Platform org.

This is a manager-of-managers role with real architectural and strategic ownership. You9ll have 2 to 4 engineering managers reporting in and influence over 15 to 30 engineers indirectly. You will be expected to set direction, not just execute on it.

What you9ll do:

Lead a multi-team product area

• Own the product area9s company-level objectives and the engineering plan that delivers them
• Translate company priorities into product area plans and team plans, in a way that flows both up and down
• Be responsible for architecture-level trade-offs across the area9s teams; own the technical roadmap and how it balances against product commitments
• Represent the product area in s-team forums and engineering-wide leadership conversations

Develop the engineering managers reporting to you

• Coach EMs to a higher bar with clear feedback, growth plans, and direct support
• Hold the line on engineering practices: flow-based delivery, vertical slicing (nothing >5 days, no project >4 weeks), WIP discipline, Definition of Done, observability, AI-native development
• Address performance issues early and clearly; develop managers out of 4fine4 performance into great performance
• Be directive when our values, quality bar, or ways of working are at stake

Drive technical excellence across the product area

• Support and drive architecture and systems design decisions across the area; ensure systems are reliable, maintainable, and operationally ready
• Take accountability for SLAs and incident response across the area
• Make tech-debt and reliability trade-offs on purpose, not by accident

Partner cross-functionally

• Co-own outcomes with PM and Design leads (roadmap, quarterly goals, quality bar)
• Partner with Revenue, Ops, CX, and other functions as the product area requires
• Formalize the interface with the Platform org: planning, committed deliverables, escalation paths
• Build pragmatic interim solutions that work today and migrate cleanly to Platform services as they mature

You will be a match if:

• 2+ years managing managers, with direct reports who were themselves people managers
• 7+ years total in technical roles, with a strong individual-contributor era you can still draw on
• Have owned a product area, pillar, or equivalent multi-team scope and delivered a measurable business outcome
• Have built or evolved engineering practices across multiple teams, not just within one
• Have hired, developed, and (where necessary) parted ways with engineering managers
• Operate with a reproducible structural playbook for changing org topology and developing managers, not just experience
• Comfortable making and defending architecture-level trade-offs; can still reason about code with taste
• Operate by Candor > Harmony: give the hard message early, comfortable with disagreement
• Use LLM-based tools daily and push the org to adopt them
• Are an excellent written communicator; can articulate strategy and trade-offs clearly in writing

Nice to Have:

• Experience in a multi-product or multi-persona consumer and enterprise business
• Experience leading a remote-first, distributed engineering team
• Has used AI-native workflows to materially change how a team designs, ships, and operates (not just personal use)
• Brings a network of high-quality engineering talent

[1] Some more context:

(If you are on LinkedIn, you will not be able to access the hyperlinks below. Once you click apply, you will be directed to our career website (if you are not on there already) and will be able to access the hyperlinks)

• How ClassDojo Connects Parents, Students, and Teachers
• 4Whats New on ClassDojo 20234
• TechCrunch Article: Second Act comes with First Profits

Click here if you9re interested in learning more about what we9ve been up to.

ClassDojo takes a number of factors into consideration when determining compensation, including geographic location, experience, and skillset. Salary ranges (United States):

CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT states: $240,000 - $280,000 (USD)

All other states in the US: $204,000 - $238,000 (USD)

#LI-Remote