Engineering Manager, Developer Experience

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 are looking for a skilled Engineering Manager to lead our Developer Experience team. This is a critical role focused on driving developer adoption, productivity, and satisfaction with Aiven's platform.

You will report to the Head of Platform, working closely with your engineering team and product manager to drive revenue through four core responsibilities:

• Developer Enablement: Ensure the platform is easy and intuitive for developers to use by simplifying onboarding, improving documentation, and building self-service tooling.
• AI Enablement: Lead the strategy and execution for integrating AI tools and capabilities into the platform to enhance developer productivity and innovation.
• Developer Satisfaction: Establish feedback loops with our external and internal developer communities to understand their pain points and prioritize platform improvements that directly enhance their experience.
• Product Differentiation: Ideate and develop innovative new developer-facing features, SDKs, and integrations that attract our target customer segment, drive product engagement, and ultimately fuel growth.

What You'll Do:

• Strategic Planning: Partner with the Product Manager and Domain Head to create the team's roadmap, balancing business growth with essential engineering initiatives. Ability to identify technical debt, and balance innovation with stability is vital.
• Project Management: Oversee the team's backlog and projects, providing clear, timely, and actionable updates to stakeholders on progress and potential blockers.
• Leadership & Delivery: Champion a culture of urgency and ownership to deliver impactful results. You'll be accountable for the team's delivery in all aspects, including quality, security, and reliability. Focus delivery on developer tools, APIs, and documentation assets.
• AI/ML Strategy: Define and champion the integration of AI/ML services and tooling that empower developers to build intelligent applications on Aiven's platform.
• Team Enablement: Empower your team to act as "product custodians" by consistently addressing foundational and production issues.
• Performance & Development: Provide clear goals and feedback to manage expectations and drive both individual and team performance.
• Team Facilitation: Lead team meetings, such as planning sessions and retrospectives, to continuously improve workflows and delivery.
• Culture Building: Foster a psychologically safe, high-trust environment where curiosity and healthy debate are encouraged.
• Collaboration: Ensure effective communication and collaboration both within the team and across the wider organization, particularly with Developer Relations and Product Marketing teams.

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. While we typically look for at least five years of hands-on experience and two years in a people leadership role, your accomplishments matter more than years on a resume. 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've shipped, the impact they had, and what you learned along the way.

Leadership skills:

• People Leadership: A proven track record of leading diverse teams, from junior to senior engineers, to successfully deliver software products.
• Developer Empathy & Product Thinking: A strong developer-centric product sense that enables your team to design innovative APIs, CLIs, and documentation that stay ahead of the curve.
• Communication: Excellent communication skills in English, with the ability to effectively engage directly with customers and the wider developer community.
• Adaptability: The ability to bring order and clarity to a dynamic, ambiguous environment, a trait essential in a fast-growing tech company.
• Team Building: Experience in recruiting engineering talent and a deep understanding of what it takes to build and retain high-performing teams.
• Agile Expertise: Experience with agile software development methodologies.

Technical skills:

• API & Tooling Design: Experience in building and designing excellent developer tooling, SDKs, and REST APIs for a cloud platform.
• Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC): Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools, particularly Terraform, for managing and automating cloud infrastructure deployment.
• Documentation & Content: Strong knowledge of developer documentation best practices, tutorials, and integrating content into the developer journey.
• Observability: A good grasp of monitoring and observability tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry.
• Platform Fundamentals: The ability to understand and work with platform components to identify and remove developer friction points.
• Problem-Solving: A genuine interest in solving complex technical challenges with customer-focused solutions.

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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