Engineering Manager, App Layer Platform

About Aiven

Aiven is a global team of over 400 people dedicated to advancing open-source technology and multi-cloud solutions. Their mission is to empower developers and creators by providing an accessible cloud data platform for open-source databases, search, streaming, and application infrastructure.

The Role

We are seeking a skilled Engineering Manager to lead the App Layer Platform team, responsible for ensuring this core component of Aiven's platform is reliable, scalable, and secure. Reporting to the Head of Developer Experience, you will work collaboratively with your team and product manager to drive revenue through three key areas:

• Operational Excellence: Guaranteeing the delivery, reliability, scalability, and security of the App platform's General Availability (GA) offering.
• Customer Satisfaction: Resolving escalated support issues for external customers and understanding their needs.
• Platform Optimization and Differentiation: Innovating and developing new features to support current and future use cases efficiently and cost-effectively.

What You’ll Do

• Strategic Planning: Partner with the Product Manager and Domain Head to define the team's roadmap, balancing business growth with engineering initiatives, technical debt management, and stability.
• Project Management: Oversee the team's backlog and projects, providing clear, timely updates on progress and potential blockers to stakeholders.
• Leadership & Delivery: Foster a culture of urgency and ownership, ensuring the team's delivery in all aspects, including quality, security, and reliability.
• Team Enablement: Empower team members to act as "product custodians" by addressing foundational and production issues.
• Performance & Development: Set clear goals and provide feedback to manage expectations and drive individual and team performance.
• Team Facilitation: Lead team meetings (e.g., planning sessions, retrospectives) to continuously improve workflows and delivery.
• Culture Building: Cultivate a psychologically safe, high-trust environment that encourages curiosity and constructive debate.
• Collaboration: Ensure effective communication and collaboration within the team and across the wider organization (Europe and Americas time zones).
• AI Enablement: Lead the team's adoption and enablement of AI coding tools.

What We’re Looking For

We value accomplishments over years of experience. While we typically look for at least five years of hands-on experience and two years in people leadership, your impact and learnings are paramount. Whether you have a strong technical background or are transitioning into people leadership, we want to hear about your experience shipping products and their impact.

Leadership Skills:

• People Leadership: Proven track record of leading diverse teams (junior to senior engineers) to successfully deliver software products.
• Product Thinking: Strong product sense to guide your team in designing innovative, cloud-native products.
• Communication: Excellent English communication skills, including direct customer engagement.
• Adaptability: Ability to bring clarity and order to dynamic, ambiguous environments.
• Team Building: Experience in recruiting and retaining high-performing engineering talent.
• Agile Expertise: Proficiency with agile software development methodologies.

Technical Skills:

• App Platform: Extensive experience with large-scale containerization and workload orchestration.
• Reliability Engineering: Experience developing and enforcing SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs; capacity planning, system risk analysis, and managing production systems.
• Distributed Systems: Experience building, designing, and operating distributed systems in multi-cloud, multi-region, multi-tenant environments.
• Observability: Strong understanding of monitoring and observability tools and their application in development and operations.
• Software Delivery: Deep understanding of release management and CI/CD best practices.
• Problem-Solving: Genuine interest in solving complex technical challenges with customer-centric solutions.

Compensation

The salary range for this role is $154,000 - $192,500 per year, determined by skills, experience, qualifications, location, and internal pay equity. This position is also eligible for an equity award.

Global Benefits

• Participation in Aiven’s equity plan.
• Hybrid work policy for work-life balance.
• Choice of equipment to ensure success.
• Professional Development Plan budget for learning opportunities.
• Global Employee Assistance Program for holistic wellbeing support.
• Inquire about our Global Time Off Commitment (Parental and Sick Leave, Personal Time).
• Country-specific benefits.

How to Recognize and Avoid Employment Scams

Be aware of fake job postings. Aiven recruitment communications originate from @aiven.io, @greenhouse.io, or @eu.greenhouse.io domains. Interviews are conducted via video call or in person, never via text or chat. For any concerns about job legitimacy, contact recruitment@aiven.io.

Equal Opportunities

Aiven is an equal opportunity employer, committed to non-discrimination based on age, gender identity, origin, religion, sexual orientation, ability, marital status, or other personal attributes. This policy applies to all employment conditions.

Accessibility

Aiven provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs. Contact recruitment@aiven.io with any questions before applying.

AI in Our Hiring Process

Aiven does not currently use artificial intelligence for screening, assessment, or selection. All applications are reviewed by the recruitment team.

This posting is for an existing, open vacancy.