Software Development Manager
$150,000–$150,000 year
HybridWestbrook, Maine, United States
Job Summary
Manage the Zookeepers engineering team, including SREs, developers, and dotted-line DevOps/QA functions, by assigning work, monitoring activities, and evaluating performance. Plan and organize daily operations to ensure adequate staffing, maintain delivery schedules, and support production stability and customer satisfaction. Triage and prioritize inbound requests from security initiatives, high-priority defects, AWS infrastructure needs, and compliance activities while identifying strategies to enhance engineering reliability and delivery velocity. Collaborate with Product, Security, and other engineering teams to resolve cross-functional issues, lead process improvements, and prepare reports on team activities and operational metrics for senior leadership.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
- 5-7+ years of people management experience in a software engineering environment with demonstrated leadership success
- Ability to organize, prioritize, and direct work across a multi-discipline team including SRE, Development, QA, and DevOps functions
- Experience managing dotted-line or matrix reporting relationships
- Ability to manage escalated and critical issues calmly and decisively
- General knowledge of software engineering operations, including infrastructure, delivery pipelines, and production support environments
- Familiarity with AWS infrastructure, security compliance programs, and SRE or platform engineering practices
- Working knowledge of Java, C#, React, and Angular
- Awareness of AI/ML trends and tooling as applied to software engineering, including AI-assisted development, automation opportunities, and responsible adoption within engineering workflows
- Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building skills with the ability to effectively partner across product and engineering organizations
- Strong verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical audiences and vice versa
- Ability to manage expectations, communicate trade-offs clearly, and appropriately challenge decisions when needed
- Strong reasoning, analytical, and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify root causes, resolve issues, and recommend improvements
- Project management skills with the ability to track capacity, commitments, and delivery metrics across multiple workstreams
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office and standard engineering collaboration tools
- Must be able to engage meaningfully with developers and technical leads on architecture, technical trade-offs, and delivery risks
- This role operates in a hybrid capacity, with team members onsite 2 days per week (8 days per month)
Desired Qualifications
- Hands-on development experience (not required but helpful for engaging with developers)
- Experience leading and contributing to process improvements based on business needs and evaluation of existing procedures
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