Tech Lead / Engineering Manager

We're hiring a Tech Lead / Engineering Manager to lead a small pod and own a key surface area of the product. This is a hands-on, player-coach role on a path to a full EM seat. You'll write code every week, set technical direction, mentor your pod, and help with hiring. ~70% IC and 30% leadership to start - the hands-on phase is the runway, not the destination. This role is for the engineer who already leads without the title - you mentor other engineers, you drive projects that need coordination across people, you're who teammates go to before they go to their manager. You want your next chapter to be about growing a team, without having to put the keyboard down on day one. If that's you, we want to talk. What You'll Be Doing - Lead a small pod. 3-4 engineers in your surface area. Own technical direction and code review. As the team grows, you'll pick up 1:1s, growth plans, and performance work. - Stay hands-on. Ship code, review code, debug production issues. You should never get more than a few days away from the codebase. - Develop the engineers around you. Pair, mentor, coach. Help the engineers on your pod grow toward bigger scope and impact. - Be involved in hiring for your team. Help us bring in the next engineers on your pod. - Work directly with customers. Our users are 9-1-1 dispatchers and PSAP administrators. You'll visit dispatch centers, watch how they use the product, and use that context to drive what your team builds next. - Grow into a full EM seat. As we scale, you'll move into a fuller Engineering Manager scope - more reports, less code, more strategy. Who We're Looking For - Leadership spike. 3+ years of software engineering. You've already led on your team - formally or informally. You've mentored other engineers, owned a project that needed coordination across people, or driven a change that didn't have a clear owner. - Wants to grow into management. You want the management path - growing other engineers, running a team, eventually owning a full EM seat. - Strong, capable engineer. You can land in our codebase fast and ship. You read code well, reason about architecture, and care about the craft. - High ownership and pragmatic urgency. You see a problem, figure out the right thing to build, and drive it to completion. You take responsibility for outcomes, not just your code. - Clear communicator. You can explain a technical decision to a non-technical stakeholder. You write design docs other people actually read. - Customer empathy. You genuinely like understanding how people use software. You're energized by customer conversations, not drained by them. For Full-Time roles, Aurelian offers a variety of benefits, including: - Comprehensive Medical, Dental, & Vision Insurance - 401(k) - Unlimited PTO - Company-wide offsites - Equipment stipend - Relocation assistance - Daily delivered lunches (on us) - Office in Seattle - Start-up Equity