About the RoleWe are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Developer Infrastructure team on the Platform organization. You will manage and grow a high-impact team responsible for the systems that shape how every Valon engineer builds, tests, ships, and operates software.
You will treat developer infrastructure as a product: understand the needs of engineering teams, define a clear roadmap, and make the common path fast, safe, observable, and pleasant. Your scope will span internal developer tooling such as local development, test infrastructure, CI/CD, release workflows, monitoring and observability, engineering standards, and AI-enabled tools. You will partner closely with application, data, security, and operations teams to make the entire software lifecycle more reliable and productive.
This is a hands-on leadership role. You will guide architecture decisions, write code or debug systems when needed, and stay close to the developer experience you are improving. You will also be a people-first leader focused on recruiting, coaching, giving feedback, and helping engineers thrive through 360-degree feedback and continuous development.
Examples of work on the roadmap include:
- Making integration tests easy to create, discover, and run in CI.
- Enabling safe online database schema migrations via Vitess.
- Ensuring web clients are compatible with the GraphQL schema before deployment, and vice versa.
- Reducing local setup time and improving the reliability of development environments.
- Building actionable observability and release feedback loops that help engineers diagnose and fix issues quickly.
- Adopting AI tooling that improves engineering throughput while preserving quality, security, and appropriate controls.
Responsibilities- Lead and grow a team of engineers focused on developer infrastructure, platform tooling, and internal developer experience.
- Own technical strategy, planning, and execution for the developer platform, with an emphasis on reliability, security, usability, and measurable productivity gains.
- Act as a strong technical mentor and hands-on contributor when needed-guiding architecture, writing code, and debugging systems.
- Partner with engineering leaders and teams across the company to understand friction points and deliver high-leverage improvements.
- Build effective mechanisms for prioritization, platform adoption, service ownership, and continuous feedback from internal customers.
- Establish and evolve engineering processes that improve velocity, quality, and operational readiness.
- Invest in recruiting and developing talent through coaching, mentorship, and ongoing feedback.
- Promote a high-agency, high-accountability culture with clear communication and pragmatic decision-making.
Ideal Background- 6+ years of software engineering experience, including 2+ years leading and developing engineering teams.
- Experience building or operating developer platforms, internal tools, CI/CD systems, test infrastructure, release automation, or observability systems.
- Strong systems thinking and an understanding of how developer workflows, application architecture, and production infrastructure fit together.
- Hands-on experience with cloud providers such as AWS or GCP, containerization such as Docker or Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and modern observability stacks.
- A product mindset and the ability to translate internal customer needs into simple, scalable technical solutions.
- Track record of leading teams in fast-paced, high-growth environments and aligning partners around a shared roadmap.
- Demonstrated ability to mentor and grow engineers while fostering a high-performance, feedback-driven team culture.
- Excellent communication skills and a bias toward action, learning, and continuous improvement.
Benefits- Competitive salary with meaningful equity and a 401(k) plan.
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
- Pre-tax commuter benefits for transportation, rideshare, and parking.
- Company-wide onboarding, career development, and regular review cycles with 360-degree feedback.
- Quarterly budgets for team activities, swag, dinners, and more.
- Flexible PTO, sick days, and 11 company holidays.
- 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave for all new parents.
Throughout the interview process, please remember that emails will only be from valon.com email addresses. We will never ask for any personally identifiable information during the interview process itself. Please reach out to [redacted] if you have any requests to verify the authenticity of an outreach.
