Sr. Engineering Manager

Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

Recruiting from Scratch is a premier talent firm that focuses on placing the best product managers software and hardware talent at innovative companies. Our team is 100% remote and we work with teams across the United States to help them hire.

Sr. Engineering Manager

Location

San Francisco CA

On-site 5 days per week in Downtown San Francisco. Remote work is limited to 10 days per year.

Company Stage of Funding

Growth Stage / Recently Acquired by a Public Technology Company

Office Type

On-site 5 days per week

Salary

$415000 $450000 Base

Flexibility available for exceptional candidates; compensation may exceed $500000.

Equity

Competitive Equity / RSUs

Visa

Open to Visa Transfers including H-1B and TN transfers.

Experience

10 years of software engineering experience with formal engineering management experience and a continued hands-on technical contribution.

Employment Type

Full-time

Hiring Count

12 candidates

Company Description

This is an AI-focused technology company building products that transform complex professional documents into trustworthy structured data.

The companys technology combines machine learning and generative AI to process highly complex documentation and deliver reliable data products to enterprise customers. The platform is used by some of the largest firms in the industry creating an opportunity to work on AI-native products with meaningful customer and business impact.

The company combines startup-style speed and technical ownership with the resources and scale of a larger technology organization. The engineering culture is hands-on and highly collaborative with leadership expected to remain technically involved rather than operating purely as people managers.

This role reports directly to the CTO and co-founder and will lead a team of senior staff and principal engineers. The ideal candidate is a player-coach who can manage and develop high-caliber engineers while continuing to write production code review designs and debug complex technical problems.

What You Will Do

1. Lead & Develop a High-Caliber Engineering Team

• Manage 47 senior staff and principal-level engineers with the team expected to scale to approximately 1012 engineers.
• Set clear expectations provide direct feedback and coach engineers toward greater technical and product ownership.
• Develop senior engineers into technical leaders and future managers.
• Address performance issues early and create a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
• Build a high-talent-density engineering organization through thoughtful hiring onboarding and development.
• Lead the team while maintaining a strong hands-on technical presence.

2. Stay Hands-On With Production Engineering

• Continue writing production software on a regular basis.
• Review designs and pull requests and contribute directly to important architectural decisions.
• Debug complex production issues alongside senior and staff engineers.
• Maintain strong technical credibility with the engineering team through active contribution.
• Help establish engineering standards around code quality architecture testing and technical execution.
• Balance technical contribution with team leadership and organizational responsibilities.

3. Build & Ship Customer-Facing AI Products

• Lead the development of AI-native products that transform complex unstructured documents into reliable structured data.
• Guide the team in building customer-facing evaluation-driven AI systems.
• Partner closely with product and customer-facing teams to make strong technical and product decisions.
• Connect engineering priorities to measurable customer and business outcomes such as adoption product value and revenue.
• Help the team move quickly from concept to production while maintaining reliability and quality.
• Contribute to AI systems involving document intelligence retrieval evaluation and related machine learning workflows.

4. Scale the Engineering Organization & Technical Strategy

• Own hiring onboarding and team growth as the engineering organization expands.
• Help define the teams technical strategy and engineering roadmap.
• Work directly with the CTO and other senior leaders on organizational and technical priorities.
• Build processes that allow a high-performing engineering team to scale without sacrificing technical quality.
• Manage the transition between startup-style execution and enterprise-scale engineering.
• Ensure the team remains focused on high-impact customer problems and maintains strong execution velocity.

Ideal Candidate Background

Experience Requirements

• 10 years of software engineering experience.
• Formal engineering management experience is required.
• Experience as a Tech Lead Manager Senior Engineering Manager Director of Engineering or equivalent.
• Experience managing approximately 210 direct reports.
• Experience managing senior staff or principal-level engineers.
• Demonstrated progression from individual contributor engineering into formal technical leadership.
• Experience building or leading external customer-facing products.
• Strong track record at a technology company with a sophisticated engineering culture.
• Stable career progression and sustained ownership across roles.

Technical Requirements

• Strong backend backend infrastructure or backend-generalist engineering depth.
• Full-stack experience is welcome when there is a strong backend foundation.
• Current hands-on production coding experience.
• Strong system design and architecture skills.
• Experience reviewing technical designs and pull requests.
• Strong debugging and production problem-solving abilities.
• Experience making technical decisions for complex customer-facing products.
• Strong understanding of modern cloud infrastructure and distributed systems.

AI & Product Requirements

• Experience with AI/ML systems is a strong plus.
• Exposure to agentic systems retrieval-based systems document AI or evaluation-driven development is preferred.
• Experience with Python and/or TypeScript is a plus.
• Familiarity with modern cloud infrastructure is a plus.
• Experience connecting technical decisions to customer adoption product outcomes or revenue.
• Strong understanding of building and scaling external-facing products.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Strong people leadership and coaching skills.
• Able to set clear expectations and provide direct constructive feedback.
• Comfortable managing high-performing senior and staff-level engineers.
• Strong technical judgment and product judgment.
• Able to balance people leadership with hands-on technical contribution.
• Comfortable addressing performance issues directly and early.
• Strong hiring and team-building instincts.
• High ownership and accountability.
• Comfortable operating in a high-speed high-expectation environment.
• Strong communication with executives product leaders engineers and customers.

Compensation & Benefits

• $415000 $450000 base salary.
• Flexibility for exceptional candidates with potential compensation above $500000.
• Competitive equity / RSU package.
• Total compensation can reach $1M depending on equity and overall package.
• Full-time position in San Francisco.
• On-site 5 days per week in Downtown San Francisco.
• Remote work limited to approximately 10 days per year.
• Opportunity to lead a high-caliber engineering team while remaining hands-on technically.
• Startup-style ownership combined with enterprise-scale resources and customer impact.

Why Join

• Lead a team of senior staff and principal engineers while remaining an active technical contributor.
• Work directly with the CTO and co-founder on technical strategy and organizational growth.
• Build AI-native products used by major enterprise customers.
• Work at the intersection of generative AI document intelligence and structured data.
• Combine startup speed with the scale and resources of a larger technology organization.
• Have significant influence over engineering culture hiring technical strategy and team development.
• Shape the next stage of a high-talent-density engineering organization.

Required Experience:

Manager