Senior Engineering Manager, Platform

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States, +2 more countries.

📋 Description

• Take ownership of a specific area within GiveDirectly’s cash delivery platform: payments, core platform, or data collection.

• Directly oversee a team that will expand to 5–7 senior engineers, including conducting 1:1 meetings, setting goals, providing feedback, facilitating career growth, managing performance, recruiting, and onboarding.

• Be accountable for the technical results of the domain, which encompass delivery, reliability, and significant technical initiatives.

• Collaborate with product counterparts on the roadmap and delivery processes.

• Find the right balance between feature development and the reduction of technical debt, along with infrastructure investments and enhancements in velocity.

• Promote operational excellence in areas such as on-call, incident response, code quality, testing, AI, and deployment practices.

• Uphold and expand the engineering culture through growth, open discussions, product ownership, continuous improvement, and a solid engineering foundation.

• Act as the team's representative to stakeholders and leadership, converting technical realities into informed business decisions.

• Establish the technical quality standards by reviewing architecture and designs, guiding sound trade-offs while avoiding bottlenecks.

• Attract and maintain a team with high talent density.

• Enhance product-development understanding with non-technical partner teams and grasp the realities faced by field teams.

• Scale the platform from its initial launch to deliver $5 billion annually.

⛳️ Requirements

• Proficiency in the English language is required.

• A minimum of 3 years of experience managing software engineers throughout entire delivery cycles.

• At least 8 years of overall industry experience in building production software.

• Strong foundation in backend technologies, including databases, cloud services, and APIs.

• Proven ability to recruit, mentor, develop, and retain engineers.

• Experience in building and maintaining a talent-dense and inclusive team during high growth periods.

• A record of fostering a robust engineering culture that encourages open, ego-free discussions, deep product ownership, and continuous improvement in craftsmanship and tools, including agentic engineering.

• Capacity to create clarity in ambiguity, navigate complexity, and empower senior teams to act swiftly and independently.

• Strong technical acumen and experience in making critical architectural decisions.

• Ability to assess both technical and non-technical trade-offs based on recipient impact.

• Experience collaborating effectively with non-technical stakeholders and leaders.

• Alignment with GiveDirectly's values and a demonstration of emotional intelligence, problem-solving skills, project management, follow-through, and promoting inclusivity.

• Willingness to travel approximately 3–4 times a year to operational countries.

• Availability to overlap with East Africa Time and US Eastern Time (8am–6pm) for at least 3 hours.

• Note that GiveDirectly cannot sponsor or take over the sponsorship of employment visas in the U.S. or U.K.

🏝️ Benefits

• Performance-based bonus of 15% at target levels, with potential for additional upside.

• Annual benefits stipend of $21,393 (United States), £2,760 (United Kingdom), or $8,453 (Kenya).

• Opportunity for fully remote work.

• Flexible schedule to accommodate personal commitments.

• Opportunities for professional growth and development.

• Team retreats or field visits occurring approximately 3–4 times a year.

• Reasonable accommodations provided throughout the application, interview, and employment processes.

• A referral bonus of $3,000 for Senior Manager or higher roles, payable if the referred candidate is hired.