Engineering Manager

Location: Santa Clara, CA (5 days/week in office) Comp: ~$250K–$300K base + equity Who We Are Building the Backbone of Distributed Applications. At Orkes , we are reimagining how developers build reliable, scalable, event-driven applications without wrangling complex infrastructure. Born from Netflix’s battle-tested open-source project, OSS Conductor, our platform is now powering billions of mission critical workflows across fintech, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare, and more. Our platform powers billions of mission critical workflows across industries like fintech, e-commerce, logistics, and healthcare helping companies run the core operations of their business with confidence. These are the workflows behind every transaction, every delivery, every patient check‑in, quietly orchestrating our digital world. We’re solving some of the hardest infrastructure problems: how do you make distributed systems reliable, observable, and scalable – without every team having to reinvent the wheel? We absorb the complexity of distributed systems, letting teams build with confidence. We’re hiring a strong engineering leader to own the Cloud & Platform engineering function at Orkes. This is a high‑impact, highly operational role; you’ll lead engineers while staying deeply hands‑on in architecture, systems, and production challenges. The primary goal is to drive velocity of engineers on the team. We are open to: A hands‑on Tech Lead ready to step into management OR a Manager who still codes and operates at a high technical level What You’ll Own Cloud & Platform Engineering Lead systems responsible for cloud infrastructure, deployments, and platform capabilities Support customer environments and production systems at scale Drive improvements in reliability, performance, and scalability Team Leadership (Player-Coach) Lead and mentor engineers while contributing technically Review architecture, code, and system design Potential to grow and manage a larger team over time Execution in a Startup Environment Handle frequent context switching across priorities Support high‑profile customers and urgent production needs Drive velocity while maintaining engineering quality What We’re Looking For Strong background in distributed systems / cloud infrastructure Proven experience as a hands‑on engineer (recently) Experience leading engineers (formal or informal) Ability to operate in high-context-switch, fast‑moving environments Startup experience or large‑company experience with understanding of scale What Won’t Work Managers who have been out of hands‑on engineering for too long Pure people managers without deep technical credibility Engineers who struggle with fast pace or shifting priorities Ideal Profile Former senior/staff engineer stepping into leadership OR current EM who still codes and leads technically Someone who has seen both startup and structured scale #J-18808-Ljbffr