Torchora
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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Engineering Manager

💰 $150,000 - $220,000

EngineeringManagementTechnologyLeadership

🎯 Role Definition

As an Engineering Manager, you are the cornerstone of our technical leadership, acting as both a people leader and a technical guide. You will be responsible for the health, performance, and growth of a dedicated team of software engineers. Your mission is to empower your team to build scalable, reliable, and innovative products while aligning their work with the strategic goals of the business. This role requires a unique blend of hands-on technical expertise, project management acumen, and exceptional interpersonal skills to foster an environment where engineers can do their best work and grow their careers. You will collaborate closely with product management, design, and other key stakeholders to translate vision into reality, ensuring your team consistently delivers value to our customers.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Software Engineer
  • Staff/Principal Engineer
  • Technical Lead

Advancement To:

  • Senior Engineering Manager
  • Director of Engineering
  • VP of Engineering

Lateral Moves:

  • Principal Architect
  • Senior Product Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead, mentor, and empower a high-performing team of software engineers, conducting regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development planning.
  • Drive the technical vision and architectural strategy for your team's products, ensuring alignment with broader company objectives and industry best practices.
  • Own the end-to-end software development lifecycle (SDLC) for your team, from roadmap planning and requirements gathering to deployment, monitoring, and maintenance.
  • Foster a culture of technical excellence, innovation, and accountability, encouraging the adoption of new technologies and methodologies that improve quality and velocity.
  • Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Designers, and other cross-functional stakeholders to define product roadmaps and deliver impactful features for our users.
  • Champion and implement Agile/Scrum best practices to ensure predictable and efficient delivery, facilitating sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
  • Manage project priorities, deadlines, and deliverables, effectively communicating status, risks, and dependencies to all stakeholders.
  • Actively participate in technical design discussions, code reviews, and architectural deep dives to ensure solutions are scalable, reliable, and maintainable.
  • Recruit, hire, and onboard top-tier engineering talent to scale the team and meet evolving business needs.
  • Set clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for your team, and track progress to ensure objectives are met.
  • Manage the operational health of your team's services, establishing robust monitoring, alerting, and on-call rotation processes to ensure high availability.
  • Develop and manage the team's budget, including resource allocation for tools, infrastructure, and training.
  • Act as a key technical advisor to leadership, translating complex technical concepts into clear business implications.
  • Promote a DevOps culture by empowering engineers to own their code from development through to production, championing CI/CD pipelines and automation.
  • Mediate and resolve interpersonal and technical conflicts within the team, fostering a positive and inclusive work environment.
  • Stay current with emerging technology trends, and evaluate and advocate for new tools and frameworks that can enhance team productivity and product quality.
  • Ensure all engineering projects are thoroughly documented, from high-level architectural diagrams to detailed implementation guides.
  • Partner with security and compliance teams to ensure that all development practices and products adhere to industry standards and regulations.
  • Define and enforce high standards for code quality, testing coverage, and engineering operational excellence across the team.
  • Build strong relationships with other engineering leaders to share knowledge, standardize practices, and drive broader engineering initiatives across the organization.
  • Drive continuous improvement initiatives within the team by analyzing delivery metrics, identifying bottlenecks, and implementing effective process changes.
  • Provide hands-on technical guidance and direction when needed, unblocking engineers and contributing to complex problem-solving.

Secondary Functions

  • Represent the engineering team in broader company-wide strategic discussions and planning sessions.
  • Contribute to the organization's technical branding through blog posts, conference talks, and open-source contributions.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate high-level business needs into actionable engineering requirements.
  • Participate in budget planning and resource allocation for the entire engineering department.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep understanding of modern system design, microservices architecture, and distributed systems.
  • Proven experience with cloud computing platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
  • Proficiency in one or more modern programming languages like Python, Go, Java, or JavaScript/TypeScript.
  • Strong knowledge of Agile, Scrum, and Kanban methodologies and associated tools (e.g., Jira, Trello).
  • Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies, particularly Docker and Kubernetes.
  • Expertise in version control systems (Git) and collaborative workflows like GitFlow.
  • Solid understanding of CI/CD principles and experience building and maintaining deployment pipelines.
  • Experience designing, building, and maintaining scalable and secure APIs (REST, GraphQL).
  • Knowledge of various database technologies, including relational (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB).
  • Familiarity with observability tools for monitoring, logging, and tracing (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog).

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional leadership and people management skills with a focus on mentorship and career development.
  • Outstanding verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical ideas to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities.
  • Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building skills.
  • High degree of emotional intelligence and empathy.
  • Decisive and pragmatic decision-making, especially under pressure.
  • Proven ability to resolve conflicts and foster a collaborative, inclusive team environment.
  • Strong project management and organizational skills.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's Degree in a technical field or equivalent practical experience in software development.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's Degree in a technical or management field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 7+ years of professional experience in software engineering.

Preferred:

  • 2+ years of direct people management experience in a formal or informal leadership capacity (e.g., as a Tech Lead or Engineering Manager).
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