About YouA hands-on Engineering Manager to own and grow the engineering team behind DrayDog - building innovative, technology-first solutions for the logistics industry. You'll code, set architecture direction, own the full people-management cycle, and be the main point of contact between the team and other stakeholders as we scale the team and product's reach.
About the roleYou will lead an engineering team and design, architect, build, and evolve backend services that power critical parts of our platform. You'll set the technical direction, raise the engineering bar, and unblock the team while staying hands-on in the codebase. You should be comfortable turning ideas into reliable software that solves real user needs, and equally comfortable coaching other engineers to do the same. You should care about shipping quickly, making sound technical decisions, measuring results, growing the people around you, and improving over time in a high-ownership, high-autonomy environment.
What you'll doLeadership & People- Own the full people-management cycle: 1:1s, performance reviews, career growth, and hiring as we grow the team.
- Run engineering rituals like planning, code reviews, design reviews.
- Be the main point of contact between your team and Product, other EMs, and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Build a culture of innovation, ownership, craftsmanship, and direct feedback.
Technical Execution - Stay hands-on: write code, review PRs, and weigh in on architecture on a regular basis.
- Lead backend design using Python, FastAPI, Temporal, and PostgreSQL.
- Champion unit testing, code quality, and DevOps practices (CI/CD, monitoring, reliability).
- Leverage AI tooling to improve all aspects of delivery.
Delivery & Operations - Own the technical roadmap and delivery for your team, from concept to production.
- Set SLIs/SLOs; lead postmortems and drive fixes.
- Drive observability - logging, metrics, and alerting - to catch issues before they impact customers.
QualificationsGeneral - 8+ years in software engineering (or equivalent demonstrated impact), including 2+ years as a formal people manager.
- Strong cross-functional communicator; comfortable with ambiguity and high ownership.
- Experience in startup or high-growth SaaS environments.
Technical Skills - Expert-level Python and backend API design (FastAPI or similar).
- Strong database design and query optimization skills.
- Solid grasp of DevOps: containers, deployment, monitoring, reliability.
- Track record of driving engineering quality and mentoring engineers.
- Experience using AI tools to improve delivery - code, testing, docs, and operations.
Our Stack - Python, FastAPI, Temporal, Postgres, Azure Cloud
- Docker, Kubernetes, Pulumi
What We Offer: - Real ownership of a critical system and a team to build
- A small, senior team that values quality and continuous improvement
- Respect for your work-life balance
- Competitive pay and benefits and equity
#LI-Remote
Does this role sound like the next step in your career?We'd love to hear from you! If you don't meet all of the requirements exactly, we encourage you to use your cover letter to tell us about your unique experience-talent comes from many places, and skills are transferable.
