Engineering Manager

Nectar Social

$130K — $180K *
Enterprise Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience managing software engineering teams
  • Strong product instincts with a focus on customer outcomes
  • Technical proficiency to engage in architecture discussions
  • Experience collaborating with product and design teams
  • Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, ambiguous startup environment
  • Excellent communication skills to build trust across functions
  • Interest in AI's impact on products and engineering teams

Responsibilities

  • Lead and develop a high-performing engineering team with mentorship and feedback
  • Collaborate with product and design to influence product development
  • Engage in customer calls to understand user needs and product shortcomings
  • Manage planning and delivery for team projects, focusing on quality and impact
  • Drive technical quality, reliability, and sound architecture in projects
  • Identify customer feedback patterns to inform product strategy
  • Refine engineering processes for improved operational excellence
  • Participate in hiring by sourcing and interviewing engineering talent

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation and early equity
  • Health, vision, and dental benefits with 401(k) match
  • Clear career growth opportunities as the company scales
  • Free lunch in Palo Alto
  • Exposure to advanced AI tooling and its application
  • A collaborative team culture aimed at redefining AI-native marketing infrastructure
Full Job Description
The Role

We're looking for an Engineering Manager who thinks like a product leader to own one of our core engineering teams. Our eng org includes multiple core teams with a strong product-facing focus, as well as an FDE team that moves fast across the full stack on high-priority initiatives. Your team will build products that ingest large volumes of social data, run AI agents on that data in real time, and deliver insights to customers through analytics and automation.

This isn't a pure people-management role. You'll be deeply involved in what gets built, not just how. You'll sit in customer calls, develop strong opinions about product direction, and partner with product and design as a true peer, not just an execution arm. At the same time, you'll grow engineers, drive technical quality, and help shape engineering culture as we scale from ~30 people into our next phase of growth.

What You'll Be Doing
  • Lead and grow a team of engineers, providing regular feedback, career development, and mentorship
  • Partner closely with product and design to define what gets built, not just how it gets built. Bring your own perspective on user problems, scope, and sequencing
  • Sit in customer calls regularly to build direct intuition for how social and brand teams work and where the product falls short
  • Own planning and delivery for your team's product area, balancing speed, quality, and impact
  • Drive technical quality across your team's systems, ensuring reliability, performance, and sound architecture decisions
  • Contribute to product strategy by identifying patterns across customer feedback, usage data, and engineering insight that product alone might miss
  • Establish and refine engineering processes including sprint planning, on-call, incident response, and operational excellence
  • Contribute to hiring by sourcing, interviewing, and closing strong engineering talent

What We're Looking For
  • Experience managing a team of software engineers, with a track record of developing talent and building high-performing teams
  • Strong product instincts. You form opinions about what should get built, push back on specs that don't make sense, and think in terms of customer outcomes, not just tickets
  • Technical background strong enough to engage in architecture discussions, review designs, and make sound tradeoffs
  • Experience working closely with product and design, ideally in environments where the lines between functions were blurry
  • A bias toward action and comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment with ambiguity and shifting priorities
  • Clear, direct communication style and the ability to build trust across functions
  • Interest in how AI is changing both the products we build and the way engineering teams work

Bonus Points
  • Experience in B2B SaaS, social, commerce, or marketing technology where you developed deep domain understanding
  • Previous experience in a product engineering culture where EMs were expected to contribute to product direction
  • Familiarity with our stack: React, TypeScript, AWS, Pulumi, Postgres, ClickHouse, Turbopuffer
  • Previous experience at an early-stage or rapidly scaling startup where you helped define engineering culture
  • Experience building or managing teams that ship AI-powered product experiences

What We Offer
  • Competitive compensation and early equity
  • Health, vision, and dental benefits + 401(k) match
  • Clear career growth opportunities as the company scales
  • Free lunch in the heart of University Ave. in Palo Alto
  • Deep exposure to cutting-edge AI tooling and the opportunity to shape how brands use it
  • A collaborative, ambitious team defining a new category of AI-native marketing infrastructure

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Nectar Social

More Enterprise Technology Jobs

Find similar Engineering Manager jobs: