Senior Engineering Manager, Platform

We’re a global team of over 400 people, working together to push the boundaries of open-source technology and multi-cloud solutions. Our vision is to help developers, builders, and creators bring their ideas to life with speed and simplicity, by providing a cloud data platform that makes open-source databases, search, streaming, and application infrastructure easily accessible to everyone.

The Role:

We’re hiring a senior engineering manager to lead Aiven’s Internal Platform Team. The goal for our Internal Platform team is to make the Aiven platform safe for change and ready for evolution and growth. The way we plan to reach that goal is by building scalable foundations that enable other teams to be successful, removing blockers and mitigating inefficiencies along the way.

The team, located in Helsinki, consists of some of our most experienced software engineers who work on some of the most complex subsystems of the platform - both hands-on (No paper architects here!), and by leading other engineers.

We are looking for a product-minded engineering manager with a coaching mindset who has a keen interest in the business and user behavior, is proactive with planning, priorisation and tradeoffs, and wants to understand the “Why?” behind all things. As a product-minded engineering manager you communicate well with engineers and non-engineers alike and are interested in how other teams and functions work.

What You'll Do:

• Plan the team’s roadmap together with product leadership and the team.

• Managing the team’s backlog and projects.

• Be accountable for the team’s output and performance by supporting the team’s deliveries.

• Grow the team by hiring excellent engineering talent.

• Offer 1-on-1 coaching and support to the team members.

• Create a psychologically safe, high-trust environment where curiosity, healthy debate, and exchange of ideas thrive.

• Facilitate team meetings like plannings, kick-offs and retrospectives.

What We're Looking For:

Our engineering managers have a hands-on programming background, and we expect them to have a meaningful say in technical conversations. You’ll probably have at least five years’ hands-on programming experience building platforms and distributed systems, and at least two years’ experience of people leadership. But more than the years, we care about what you have been doing - whether you’re a manager with a strong technical core, or a staff engineer looking to dive deeper into people leadership. We want to hear about the products you shipped, how they were built, what was the impact, and what you learned while doing that.

The range of different products and technologies the team is in touch with is wide, but platform and systems engineering is at its core. Our platform is built mainly with Python, with a touch of Golang where efficiency and performance is critical. Aiven runs on Aiven, as we like to put it, with PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis, Thanos and OpenSearch as the core data storage and streaming solutions, and is deployed on public cloud. We don’t expect you to tackle everything on the list from the get-go, but having prior experience is beneficial for sure.

Leadership skills:

• Proven track record of leading experienced teams in successful software product deliveries

• Communicate cross-functionally and have a strong product sense

• Experience in recruiting engineering talent

• Experience in agile software development

• Comfortable leading initiatives and presenting to groups

• Fluent communication skills in English, written and verbal

Technical skills:

• Experience building and designing scalable platforms and distributed systems

• Experience, preferably hands-on, in public cloud infrastructure and networking (AWS, GCP or Azure)

• Relational database knowledge (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.)

• Streaming service knowledge (Kafka, etc.)

• Experience working with CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, etc.)

• Experience working with container orchestrators (Kubernetes, Nomad, ECS, etc.)

• Experience designing public RESTful APIs

Don’t worry if your experience doesn’t line up perfectly – we still encourage you to apply! We believe in investing in our crabs’ professional growth.

Amazing! What’s next:

If you think Aiven is the place for you and that our Values align with yours, send us your resume and we’ll get in touch!

Global Benefits:

Our global benefits are designed to help you thrive and grow, personally and professionally:

• Participate in Aiven’s equity plan.

• Balance work and life with our hybrid work policy.

• Choose the equipment you need to set yourself up for success.

• Use your Professional Development Plan budget for learning opportunities.

• Receive holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program.

• Inquire about our Global Time Off Commitment (Parental and Sick Leave, as well as Personal Time)

• Enjoy country-specific benefits for our global cast.

How to Recognize and Avoid Employment Scams:

There has been a rise in fake job postings used by scammers to get personal information. At Aiven, all of our emails relating to recruitment come from an @aiven.io, @greenhouse.io or @eu.greenhouse.io domain and all of our interviews are conducted by video call or in person. Our interviews will never occur via text or chat. If you’re unsure of the legitimacy of a job opportunity/offer pertaining to Aiven, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].

Equal Opportunities:

Aiven provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, marital and family status or without regard to any other similar personal attributes. Aiven complies with applicable local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, training and any other terms and conditions related to employment.

At Aiven we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We make all reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities or who otherwise need support to thrive in the workplace. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. There is an option to request a discussion in the application process but if you have any questions before applying please write to us at [email protected].

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