Engineering Manager (Hands-On)

At Nirmata, our mission is to accelerate adoption of cloud native technologies for enterprises. We believe that software can radically transform the world and are building a solution to help enterprises deliver and operate mission critical software at scale. Nirmata is an enterprise-grade multi-cloud Kubernetes platform.

Qualifications

Education:Bachelors, Masters, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Technical Expertise:

• Enterprise SaaS Development & Architecture: Proven expertise in designing and developing scalable, secure enterprise SaaS products.
• Container and Cloud Platforms: Strong hands-on experience with container orchestration (Kubernetes, AKS, EKS, GKE, OpenShift) and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Programming & Frameworks: Proficiency in Java and Golang; experience with microservices frameworks like Quarkus or Spring Boot.
• CNCF Ecosystem: Familiarity with key CNCF tools and technologies, including Prometheus, GitOps, and networking/storage plugins (CNI, CSI).
• Infrastructure as Code: Practical experience with tools like Terraform and GitLab CI/CD.
• Security & Compliance: Working knowledge of security standards and experience with compliance frameworks (PCI, SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, NIST).

Management Experience:

• Team Leadership: Minimum of 3 years managing software development teams of 10+ members in a startup or fast-paced environment.
• Agile Delivery: Expertise in managing product delivery using Agile methodologies, such as Scrum or Kanban.

Technical Skills:

• Programming Languages: Java, Golang
• Data & Messaging Systems: Experience with databases (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Cassandra), message queuing/streaming (Kafka, RabbitMQ), and data processing frameworks (Spark, Flink, Storm).
• Load Balancing & Proxying: Hands-on experience with load balancers like HAProxy, NGINX, or Gateway API.
• API Definition and Implementation: Proficiency in defining and implementing APIs, including RESTful services, OpenAPI v3, and Swagger, ensuring clear and maintainable interfaces.
• Authentication: Understanding of security protocols (OAuth2, OpenID Connect, Keycloak, Vault)
• Monitoring & Logging: Knowledge of monitoring and logging tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack).
• AI/ML: Experience with AI and machine learning frameworks, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques.
• Policy engines: Kyverno, OPA

Certifications (Preferred):

• AWS: Certified Solutions Architect
• CNCF: CKA, CKAD, or CKS
• Security: CISSP, CCSP, or similar

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership and Strategy

• Drive Product Vision: Work closely with theVP of Engineering, and product team to shape the technical direction, ensuring alignment with the company's vision and market needs.
• Architecture Oversight: Oversee architectural decisions, especially for complex SaaS solutions, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security.
• Technical Standards: Establish and enforce coding, architectural, and design standards to maintain quality across the engineering team.

Team Management and Development

• Mentorship and Growth: Mentor engineering managers and individual contributors, fostering a culture of learning, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Recruitment and Talent Management: Play an active role in hiring, onboarding, and retaining top talent, aligning team members' strengths with company needs.
• Performance Management: Conduct performance reviews, set clear objectives, and provide regular feedback to team members.

Release and Process Management

• Release Oversight: Oversee the execution of releases, ensuring they meet timelines, quality standards, and budgets.
• Agile Practices: Implement and refine Agile or similar methodologies to improve productivity and adapt to changes in product or customer needs.
• Process Improvement: Continuously improve engineering processes, including CI/CD pipelines, release management, and QA practices.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Product and Customer Alignment: Collaborate with product management to translate customer needs into technical requirements, ensuring the engineering team is aligned with customer value.
• Operations and Infrastructure: Work with the DevOps and infrastructure teams to maintain robust, secure, and efficient cloud environments.
• Customer Success and Support: Partner with customer-facing teams to ensure engineering efforts address common issues and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Resource Planning

• Resource Allocation: Assess and optimize team resources based on project requirements, balancing between feature development, technical debt reduction, and innovation.

Quality, Security, and Compliance

• QA Strategy & Oversight: Establish a comprehensive QA strategy that integrates both automated and manual testing to ensure a high-quality, reliable product experience across all components.
• Automation Standards: Implement and oversee robust automation practices, including UI automation, API automation, and unit testing, to drive efficiency and reduce manual testing efforts.
• Test Coverage Mandates: Enforce high levels of test coverage across the codebase, setting and monitoring standards for unit, integration, and end-to-end tests to ensure product stability and reduce regression risks.
• Continuous Integration & Automation: Maintain and refine CI/CD pipelines to support automated testing and seamless deployments, ensuring all changes meet defined quality and test coverage thresholds before release.
• Security Practices: Enforce security best practices and compliance with industry standards relevant to Nirmatas market, such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
• Incident Management: Oversee incident response and post-mortem processes to learn from system outages or security incidents.

Innovation and Technical Advocacy

• Foster Innovation: Encourage and support R&D initiatives or proof-of-concept projects to keep the companys technology forward-looking.
• Evangelize Best Practices: Advocate for industry best practices in areas like Kubernetes, DevOps, and microservices within the team and across the company.
• External Representation: Represent the engineering team in industry conferences, meetups, or technical discussions with partners and customers.