Senior Manager, Engineering

Senior Manager, Engineering

Job Purpose

The Senior Engineering Manager is a senior technical and people leader responsible for leading multiple engineering teams and/or complex product platforms to deliver high‑quality, scalable, and secure software solutions that drive measurable business outcomes. This role partners closely with Product Management, Architecture, Quality Assurance, and other cross‑functional leaders to translate product strategy and organizational priorities into clear, achievable engineering plans while ensuring strong technical direction, operational excellence, and sustainable delivery.

As a senior leader, this role is accountable not only for execution and outcomes, but also for shaping engineering culture, standards, and ways of working. The Senior Engineering Manager develops technical leaders and senior engineers; builds high‑performing, inclusive teams; drives accountability at all levels; and ensures engineering efforts align with enterprise architecture, platform strategy, and long‑term business goals.

Key Responsibilities

Engineering governance, standards, and operating model

• Own engineering governance execution for the team/program ensuring goals, scope, boundaries, and funding guardrails are translated into actionable engineering plans and enforced consistently.
• Drive definition and adoption of engineering standards and processes across the delivery lifecycle, partnering with technical leadership and architecture stakeholders to ensure consistent ways of working.
• Take accountability for engineering quality operating practices by ensuring the right quality standards/processes are in place and followed (including quality collaboration with QA and Scrum roles).

Capacity, staffing, and delivery planning

• Lead staffing and capacity planning to ensure teams are appropriately resourced to meet delivery commitments.
• Take accountability for delivery planning—including estimation, milestones, sprint plans, and dependency plans—ensuring plans are achievable, sequenced, and aligned to commitments.

Agile execution leadership (planning through delivery)

• Own backlog health and readiness by leading backlog grooming outcomes and ensuring the team is prepared for predictable delivery.
• Enable and reinforce agile ceremonies and team execution rhythm, partnering closely with the Scrum Master while ensuring ceremonies produce decisions, clarity, and forward progress.
• Take accountability for refinement progression and delivery lifecycle execution, ensuring work moves effectively from refinement levels through execution with appropriate rigor and stakeholder engagement.

Technical leadership and solution accountability

• Own the solution approach at the team level, ensuring the chosen approach meets business outcomes and aligns with architectural direction and constraints.
• Take accountability for detailed technical direction, ensuring engineers/tech leads have clear direction, decisions are made in a timely way, and implementation choices support long-term maintainability.
• Lead technology selection within established guardrails (frameworks/libraries/services), ensuring choices are pragmatic, supportable, and aligned with platform/enterprise constraints.
• Own day-to-day integration contract and API design leadership, ensuring interfaces are robust, consistent, and coordinated with downstream/upstream partners.

Non-functional Requirements, Quality, and Release Readiness

• Take accountability for non-functional requirements (performance, resiliency, observability), ensuring NFRs are defined, implemented, and validated as part of delivery—not treated as an afterthought.
• Own test strategy and quality gates in partnership with QA, ensuring quality expectations are clear, and releases meet defined criteria.
• Own release planning and readiness orchestration, coordinating across engineering, QA, and delivery roles to ensure releases are planned, validated, and executed safely.
• Take accountability for go‑live decisions, ensuring the organization has the necessary confidence, validation, and readiness signals before production deployment.

Production excellence and continuous improvement

• Own production incident execution leadership, ensuring incident response is effective, coordinated, and results in durable corrective actions.
• Take accountability for post‑launch outcomes by driving KPI reviews, ensuring delivery meets expected results, and owning a sustainable technical debt paydown plan.

Leadership for the team

• Lead, coach, and develop team members to drive high performance, engagement, and continuous growth.
• Communicate clearly and effectively with stakeholders, actively listening to build alignment, trust, and shared understanding.
• Foster a culture of trust, inclusion, and accountability by modeling integrity, empathy, and professionalism.
• Build strong, collaborative relationships across teams and functions to achieve shared business outcomes.
• Manage conflict and difficult conversations constructively, balancing people needs with business priorities.
• Lead teams through change by providing clarity, adaptability, and support during periods of ambiguity.
• Set clear goals and expectations, ensuring accountability for results while empowering ownership and decision‑making.
• Connect team efforts to broader organizational purpose, values, and customer impact.

Multi‑Team & Platform Leadership

• Provide oversight to multiple engineering teams and/or Business Platforms, ensuring alignment, coordination, and shared accountability for outcomes.
• Direct the work of teams and individuals across multiple concurrent initiatives to achieve defined product and platform goals.
• Ensure platforms and services meet the needs of multiple lines of business while maintaining scalability, availability, and performance.
• Balance delivery commitments with long‑term platform health and sustainability.

Skills & Competencies

Technical & Functional Expertise

• 12–15+ years of experience in software engineering or related technical roles.
• Deep expertise in modern software engineering and product development.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, microservices, APIs, and enterprise platforms.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and modern DevOps practices.
• Proven ability to balance short‑term delivery needs with long‑term architectural health.
• Proven track record of delivering large‑scale, business‑critical software solutions.
• Experience operating in regulated or enterprise environments preferred.

Leadership & Behavioral Competencies

• 8+ years of demonstrated experience leading in an engineering or technology capacity.
• Demonstrated ability to lead leaders and influence outcomes across organizational boundaries.
• Considerable experience mentoring and guiding software developers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
• Strong communication, coaching, and decision‑making skills.
• High level of ownership, accountability, and operational discipline.
• Ability to lead effectively through change, ambiguity, and competing priorities.

Sponsorship

Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa at this time.

Upbound Group is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.