Engineering Manager, Platform

About Customer.io

Over 8,000 companies—from scrappy startups to global brands—use our platform to send billions of emails, push notifications, in-app messages, and SMS every day. Customer.io powers automated communication that people actually want to receive.

We help teams send smarter, more relevant messages using real-time behavioral data. Under the hood: Go, React, Ember and AI help us ship fast and scale with confidence.

We’re looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead a platform-focused team responsible for building and operating critical infrastructure systems. This role blends people leadership with strong technical judgment, ownership of complex systems, and close collaboration with product and engineering partners.

What We Value

Ownership

You take clear ownership of your team’s systems and outcomes. You help translate broader platform direction into actionable technical plans, make thoughtful tradeoffs, and ensure your team consistently delivers reliable, scalable solutions.

Leaders who drive customer impact

You help your team connect platform work to real customer outcomes. You set clear priorities, balance reliability and velocity, and ensure the team is focused on the platform investments that most effectively support product teams and customers.

A healthy skepticism for “the way things are done”

You encourage your team to question assumptions and improve existing systems. You balance best practices with pragmatism and help the team move forward without over-engineering or unnecessary risk.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and grow a team of engineers working on platform services. The team drives the engine of scale for Customer.io and has significant impact on reliability and data systems
• Support your team through clear goal-setting, regular feedback, career development, and thoughtful hiring
• Partner closely with staff engineers and product managers to plan and execute platform initiatives that improve scale, reliability, and developer productivity
• Drive technical execution for distributed systems that process large volumes of events with strong performance and availability requirements
• Guide architectural decisions within your team, aligning with broader platform standards and long-term direction
• Ensure your team’s services are observable, well-tested, and operationally sound
• Lead incident response for your team’s systems and foster a culture of learning and improvement through effective post-incident reviews
• Collaborate with adjacent engineering teams, security, and product partners to ensure platform work supports company priorities
• Help improve internal tooling, workflows, and processes that enable engineers to do their best work
• Leverage modern tooling—including AI-assisted development tools—where appropriate to improve team efficiency and focus

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems
• 3+ years of experience managing engineers, including hiring, coaching, and performance development
• Strong technical background with the ability to lead design discussions, review complex systems, and make sound architectural tradeoffs
• Experience working with cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and modern backend systems
• Familiarity with distributed systems concepts such as asynchronous processing, event-driven architectures, and data pipelines
• Proven ability to deliver meaningful technical projects through a team
• Clear and effective communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to both engineers and non-engineers
• Comfort balancing people leadership with hands-on technical involvement
• Strong judgment around prioritization, execution, and reliability in ambiguous problem spaces

Bonus points for

• Experience at high-growth SaaS companies
• Exposure to messaging systems, data pipelines, or high-throughput backend services
• Experience improving developer tooling or platform ergonomics
• Familiarity with AI/ML tooling or infrastructure

Compensation & Benefits

We believe in transparency. Starting salary for this role is $175,000 - $245,000 USD (or equivalent in local currency) depending on experience and subject to market rate adjustment.

We know our people are what make us great, and we’re committed to taking great care of them. Our inclusive benefits package supports your well-being and growth, including 100% coverage of medical, dental, vision, mental health, and supplemental insurance premiums for you and your family. We also offer 16 weeks paid parental leave, unlimited PTO, stipends for remote work and wellness, a professional development budget, and more.

See full benefits here →

Our Process

No gotchas, no trick questions. Just a clear, human process designed to help both of us make an informed decision.

• Application - We review everyone with care. Tell us why you're interested.
• Recruiter Call (30 mins) - Let’s chat about what you’re looking for and how we work.
• Behavioral & Leadership Interviews (60 mins + 45 mins) - Meet with the hiring manager and a people partner to explore your leadership style, management philosophy, and approach to supporting high-performing teams.
• Technical Interview (60 mins) - A collaborative system design conversation focused on scaling challenges.

All final candidates will be asked to complete a background check and employment verifications as part of our pre-employment process.

Customer.io recognizes the stifling impact of systemic injustice on diverse communities. We commit to using our influence to increase inclusion and equity within the tech industry. We strive to build an inclusive team culture, implement bias-free hiring practices, and develop community partnerships to expand our global impact.

Zoom is the only video conference platform that we use, virtual interviews will be conducted using the video capability (i.e., not via the chat), and offers will be extended in writing on official Customer.io letterhead. Please be vigilant in all of your job search activity, and if you have any questions please contact [email protected].

Join us!

We believe in empathy, transparency, responsibility, and, yes, a little awkwardness. If you’re excited by what you read and want to build software that makes communication better for everyone—apply now.