Production Engineering Manager

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Australia.

📋 Description

• Oversee the Embedded team, one of the two divisions within Production Engineering.

• Lead engineers engaged in essential data protection, safer software modifications, reliability and observability, as well as resilience tooling and frameworks.

• Establish trust and influence engineering leaders across teams that fall outside the direct reporting structure.

• Assist engineers in navigating various technical and organizational landscapes.

• Influence technical decisions and question assumptions effectively.

• Determine which challenges the Embedded team will address, how engagements will be structured, success metrics, and the team's operational framework.

• Foster an environment where seasoned engineers can excel in their work.

• Provide direction, cultivate psychological safety, offer direct coaching, and enhance the technical and organizational influence of senior engineers.

• Concentrate the Embedded team on high-impact production challenges and ensure that outcomes are quantifiable.

• Develop a scalable engagement model while maintaining high standards in technical quality, coaching effectiveness, and close collaborations.

• Transform lessons learned from engagements into reusable engineering practices, patterns, and capabilities across Canva.

• Mentor senior engineers and engagement leads to become the next generation of technical leaders.

⛳️ Requirements

• Proven experience in guiding highly skilled software engineers and technical leads through complex or unclear tasks.

• Demonstrated ability to coach individuals operating with considerable autonomy.

• Background in software environments where reliability, scalability, and production risks are critical.

• Experience in establishing trust from a foundation where influence is prioritized over reporting structures.

• Proven track record in leading substantial technical initiatives that span multiple teams or groups from problem identification to successful delivery.

• Experience in convincing teams to alter their software development or operational practices.

• Ability to articulate complex technical trade-offs to senior stakeholders effectively.

• Capacity to cultivate an environment where engineers can question ideas, learn, and receive constructive feedback.

• Strong foundations in computer science principles, including concurrency, multithreading, and data structures.

• Proficiency in Go, Python, Java, or C++ sufficient to engage in discussions regarding designs, implementation choices, and technical trade-offs.

• Comprehensive understanding of system internals, networking, and cloud platforms like AWS or GCP.

• Ability to navigate ambiguous problems that involve multiple components, teams, and constraints.

• Solid grasp of system design, architecture, and engineering patterns.

• Familiarity with observability, capacity, failure modes, and operational characteristics of production systems.

• Experience in large-scale or high-stakes environments where reliability failures have significant implications.

• Nice to have: previous experience in SRE/PE management.

• Nice to have: background in large-scale storage, CDN, networking, or distributed infrastructure.

• Nice to have: history of mentoring senior engineers and technical leads.

• Nice to have: experience in defining a technical function's identity, operational model, or scope.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equity packages.

• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents and caregivers.

• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance promoting wellbeing, social connections, office setup, and more.

• Flexible leave options.

• Virtual interviews.