DescriptionPosition Overview The Software Engineering Manager is a senior-level, "player-coach" engineering role that combines direct technical contribution with team leadership responsibilities within the Terafab product area. This role is responsible for guiding the day-to-day execution, coordination, and technical direction of a team of software engineers while remaining a strong individual contributor. The manager serves as the primary interface between the Terafab software engineering team and adjacent hardware-focused teams including Autonomy, IoT, and Controls, defining and maintaining clear cross-team technical interfaces. This role reports to the Sr. Director of Software, Data, IoT, and Autonomy.
Key Responsibilities Strategic Technical Leadership
- Lead design and implementation of significant features, services, or architectural components within Fab
- Design and implement complex data models, APIs, and system integrations that balance current needs with future scalability
- Define, establish, and maintain technical interfaces between Fab software and adjacent systems including Autonomy, IoT, and Controls/SCADA
- Define and drive technical strategy and architecture for Terafab's manufacturing execution system (Fab)
- Drive technical decisions and architectural direction for construction automation orchestration workflows
- Identify and lead efforts to address technical debt, refactoring, and system modernization within Fab
- Establish and evolve coding patterns, best practices, and technical standards within the team
- Evaluate and introduce new technologies, tools, or approaches that improve team productivity or product capabilities
- Conduct thorough code reviews with a focus on architecture, maintainability, and knowledge transfer
- Represent engineering in planning discussions with product and cross-functional stakeholders
Complex Problem Solving and Execution - Resolve complex technical challenges that span multiple systems or have ambiguous requirements, particularly at the boundaries between Fab and hardware-adjacent systems
- Proactively identify systemic issues, performance bottlenecks, or architectural limitations and drive resolution
- Lead investigations into production issues, root cause analysis, and implementation of long-term fixes
- Balance technical perfection with business pragmatism, making strategic trade-offs that serve team and product goals
- Contribute to technical planning, estimation, and risk assessment for major Fab initiatives
- Serve as technical escalation point for production incidents requiring expert-level intervention
People Management and Team Coordination - Manage a small team of software engineers, including performance oversight, career development, and regular 1:1s
- Own and facilitate the team's scrum process: sprint planning, backlog grooming, daily standups, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, with support from senior management
- Coordinate task prioritization and delivery across the team, resolving blockers and managing dependencies
- Serve as the primary point of coordination between the Fab engineering team and cross-functional partners including Autonomy, IoT, and Controls teams, with support from senior management on more strategic coordination and decisions
- Translate product requirements and stakeholder needs into actionable technical work for the team
- Mentor team members through code reviews, pairing sessions, and technical guidance
- Raise the technical bar for the team through knowledge sharing and establishing engineering best practices
- Assist the Sr. Director in engineering planning, resource estimation, and risk assessment for Fab initiatives
- Contribute to engineering hiring, technical candidate assessment, and onboarding of new team members
- Contribute positively to engineering culture, team process improvements, and cross-functional relationships
RequirementsRequired
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience
- 1+ years of experience managing or leading a small engineering team, including people management, performance feedback, and career development
- Passion for developing other engineers through mentorship, goal-setting, and clear, direct communication
- Recent experience shipping production code that you have written
- Expert proficiency in Python and building scalable backend services with modern frameworks (e.g., Django)
- Strong architectural thinking with proven ability to design systems that scale across multiple dimensions (performance, team size, feature complexity)
- Strong experience with modern frontend frameworks (e.g., Angular, React), including complex state management and performance optimization
- Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and query optimization
- Productive, non-dependent use of AI-assisted coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor), with demonstrated ability to set appropriate guardrails for junior engineers; balances velocity gains against code quality, long-term maintainability, and ensuring the team develops durable technical skills
- Proven experience designing and implementing complex data models with intricate relationships and constraints
- Demonstrated experience defining and maintaining technical interfaces between software and hardware-adjacent systems (e.g., industrial automation, robotics, or IoT systems)
- Hands-on experience participating in and facilitating agile/scrum processes including sprint planning, backlog management, and team velocity tracking
Preferred
- Davis, CA or regional presence for easier collaboration with hardware teams; candidates based in Pacific or Mountain time zones strongly preferred
- Deep experience with workflow orchestration or state machine systems, event-driven architectures, discrete event simulation, or industrial automation - particularly in the context of construction or manufacturing execution
- Familiarity with hardware integration protocols and patterns relevant to construction robotics or field automation (e.g., Modbus, OPC-UA, MQTT, CAN bus, or similar)
- Experience with real-time monitoring and telemetry systems, edge computing, or IoT data pipelines
- Proficiency with PostGIS or similar tools for spatial data workloads
- Strong experience with cloud infrastructure and infrastructure as code (AWS, CloudFormation, Terraform)
- Subject matter expertise in construction technology, industrial automation, renewable energy systems, or related domains
- Track record of technical and team leadership in fast-paced, high-growth startup or scale-up environments
- Experience with microservices architectures and distributed systems
- Experience with performance optimization, scaling, and reliability engineering
BenefitsCompensation And BenefitsOur salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. This role offers a base salary of $145,000- $180,000. Within each posted range, individual pay is determined, dependent on work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Terabase offers competitive compensation along with a comprehensive benefits package, including:
• Generous time off and holiday policy
• Hybrid flexibility
• Flexible time off
• Comprehensive benefits package
• Career progression
• 401k match
• Stock options
• Home office set up allowance
• And much more!
