Software Engineering Manager

Designation: Software Engineering Manager

Location: Hyderabad

Work Mode: Office

Reporting to: Director of Engineering

About US:
 

Foundation AI automatically ingests incoming documents, emails, and attachments from across your firm. It profiles matches, classifies, and saves each to your DMS, and then automates document-dependent workflows according to your rules. Read more about us at www.foundationai.com
 

Job Overview:
 

As an Engineering Manager at Foundation AI, you will lead a team of talented engineers to deliver high-quality software products that align with our business goals. You will be responsible for managing project execution, ensuring timely delivery, fostering team growth, and maintaining high standards of technical excellence. This role requires a blend of strong technical expertise and exceptional leadership skills.

Key Responsibilities:
 

Team Leadership and Management:

• Lead and manage a team of 8-10 engineers, ensuring their performance, growth, and alignment with organizational goals.
• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, provide coaching, and manage performance reviews.
• Foster a positive and productive team environment, encouraging collaboration and innovation.

Project and Delivery Management:

• Drive the execution of projects, ensuring timely delivery and high-quality outcomes.
• Collaborate with product managers to define project scope, goals, and deliverables.
• Drive and resolve technical ambiguity within the team. 
• Work with the Product Management team to resolve ambiguity in Product requirements
• Manage project risks, handle escalations, and make strategic decisions to ensure successful project outcomes.
• Own the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for the team and work towards achieving them.

Technical Guidance and Support:

• Provide technical guidance to the team, helping to resolve complex technical issues and production problems.
• Ensure the team adheres to best practices in software development, architecture, and coding standards.
• Participate in design and code reviews, ensuring the quality and maintainability of the software.
• Makes low-level and high-level architecture decisions, helps the team in defining the best technology stack suited for long-term maintainability and scalability.
• Capable of delving deep into debugging to identify problem areas and suggest approaches. Drives the RCA and post-mortem exercises.
• Addresses and manages technical debt with right prioritization.

Release and Configuration Management:

• Responsible for all internal and external releases in a timely and as per the process
• Responsible for all pre/post release activities (e.g Ensuring proper tags for the images, all environment variables, secrets, and configurations in place)
• Publish the Bug statistics for tracking and analysis for improvement in dev/staging/prod environments.

Process and Operational Improvement:

• Continuously improve software development processes to enhance efficiency, quality, and operational excellence.
• Implement best practices within the team and share management best practices with peers.
• Ensure planning and process adherence for successful project and organizational outcomes.
• Define and monitor key important metrics for the development team
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Stakeholder Communication:

• Drive effective communication across business, technical, and customer stakeholders.
• Articulate the technical vision of the team and ensure alignment with business objectives.

Hiring and Talent Development:

• Proactively identify hiring needs and ensure the right talent is assembled for optimal long-term outcomes.
• Participate in the recruitment process, conducting interviews, and selecting top talent.
• Develop team members through mentoring, training, and creating growth opportunities.

Note:
Responsibilities will be tailored based on the candidate’s experience and expertise, aligning with Software Engineering Manager  I, II, or III levels

Skills and Tools:
 

• Programming Languages: 

• Minimum 8+ Years of experience.

• Possesses a broad understanding of programming languages used within the organization.
• Ensures that teams follow coding best practices, maintain code quality, and adhere to company standards.
• Facilitates knowledge sharing and removes blockers related to technology stack decisions.
• Reviews technical designs and provides input but does not engage in day-to-day coding
• Ensures scalability, maintainability, and performance of solutions through best language and framework choices.
• Establishes and enforces standardized development methodologies across teams.
• Drives innovation by fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous learning..
• Works with executive leadership to align technology choices with business goals, ensuring long-term sustainability.

• Requirements Analysis

• Ensures the team understands and aligns with requirements, resolving ambiguities early.
• Supports engineers during requirement refinement, balancing business goals with team capacity.
• Partners with product managers/owners to ensure technical feasibility and delivery timelines.
• Drives backlog clarity, ensuring requirements are well-defined before implementation
• Leads requirement alignment across multiple teams, coordinating priorities and dependencies
• Shapes requirement-setting processes at the organizational level, ensuring collaboration between engineering, product, and design.
• Leads requirement negotiations for multi-team, strategic projects.
• Defines requirement review standards, fostering a culture of technical excellence and cross-team alignment

• SDLC
• Ensures teams follow defined SDLC processes consistently..
• Optimizes SDLC processes across multiple teams, focusing on quality, speed, and collaboration
• Collaborates with technical leads to introduce best practices for code reviews, testing, and releases
• Drives adoption of CI/CD, test automation, and agile methodologies.
• Defines SDLC governance and policies across the engineering organization.
• Builds a culture of continuous improvement and operational excellence

• Technical Competency

• Reviews and advises on technical solutions.
• Evaluates technical solutions, ensures scalability and performance
• Leads enterprise-wide technical initiatives
• Defines technical vision, aligns technology with business strategy

• Unit Testing

• Ensures testing practices are followed, supports quality improvements.
• Implements testing policies, fosters test-driven development.
• Ensures teams consistently practice unit testing and automated testing.
• Defines the testing culture and quality standards for the organization.
• Encourages testing as a critical phase in agile development processes

• Estimation

• Validates team estimates, ensures delivery commitments.
• Establishes estimation standards, ensures alignment with business outcomes.
• Defines strategic estimation methodologies

• Problem-solving

• Solves routine technical issues
• Resolves complex technical and business problems.
• Analyses root causes and resolves technical and team-related issues.
• Anticipates problems, develops contingency plans, and drives innovative solutions

• Critical Thinking

• Anticipates risks and mitigates them
• Drives strategic decision-making.
• Anticipates potential challenges and proactively drives strategic solutions.
• Evaluates complex challenges and makes sound decisions

• Effective Communication

• Communicates task progress and issues to the team/stakeholder.
• Clearly articulates Agile principles and project goals to teams and stakeholders. Ensures transparency in communication.
• Provides clear updates to stakeholders and facilitates team discussions
• Tailors communication styles for different audiences (teams, executives, clients). Mediates conflicts effectively
• Drives organization-wide Agile communication standards. Influences leadership and fosters a culture of openness and trust.
• Influences stakeholders, delivers compelling presentations, and ensures alignment

• Leadership
• Guides team members and fosters collaboration within the team.
• Coaches and mentors leaders across teams, driving cross-team collaboration, performance , development and fostering a culture of growth
• Shapes organizational engineering culture and leads strategic initiatives across teams and departments

• Ownership
• Takes responsibility for team deliverables and project outcomes.
• Drives the successful delivery of multiple initiatives, ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Owns long-term success of engineering functions, driving innovation and operational excellence.

Education:

• Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+  years of experience.

Our Commitment:

At Foundation AI, we're committed to creating an inclusive and diverse workplace. We value equal opportunity and affirmative action principles, giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. We're dedicated to offering equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or veteran status. Upholding these values and adhering to applicable laws is paramount to us. 

For any feedback or inquiries, please contact us at careers@foundationai.com
Learn more about us at www.foundationai.com