Manager Engineering – Backend

Weekday; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 6,500,000 - 9,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Generous stock options

Medical Insurance coverage

Work with top AI minds

Job summary

Tekion is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead from the codebase in Bengaluru, owning an AI team and growing it to 5–8 engineers while remaining a hands-on contributor. You will write production code, own critical architecture decisions, and set the technical bar for GenAI and AI-assisted dealership workflows.

You will drive end-to-end AI architecture, evaluate models, ensure reliability/observability in production, and collaborate with Product, Design, and Data teams.

Qualifications

• 10–14 years of software engineering experience with at least 1 year in AI/ML-focused roles.
• Current production coding experience; this is not a purely managerial role.
• 3+ years of engineering management experience with a track record of growing teams.
• Deep hands-on experience with LLMs in production: RAG architectures, prompt engineering at scale, agentic tool-calling, evaluation and observability.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: system design, API design, distributed systems, CI/CD, and production operations.
• Track record of architecting and shipping AI-powered features in a product company.
• Excellent hiring instincts to source, evaluate, and close AI/ML talent.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration with Product, Design, and Data teams.

Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end AI architecture for Tekion’s platform including model serving, data pipelines, LLM orchestration, and integration with microservices.
• Make build-vs-buy decisions and own tradeoffs between open-source, API-based, RAG, and fine-tuning approaches.
• Write production code in critical paths; be the technical anchor and not just a manager.
• Conduct deep code and architecture reviews to raise engineering standards.
• Own technical debt prioritization and reliability for AI components in production.
• Build LLM-powered agents, RAG pipelines, and dealership workflow copilots (service advisor, F&I assistant, customer agents).
• Define agentic architecture: tool-calling patterns, orchestration, memory/context management, guardrails, and evaluation harnesses.
• Stay current with GenAI trends and pragmatic integration decisions (open-source models, API-based, fine-tuning, hybrid).
• Design robust evaluation/observability systems for AI features to ensure accuracy and safety.

Skills

AI/ML leadership

Hands-on coding

Engineering management

LLMs in production

RAG architectures

Prompt engineering

Tool-calling patterns

SaaS product experience

Cross-functional collaboration

System design

Job description

This role is for one of our clients

Industry: Software Development
Company Name: Tekion

Seniority level: Mid-Senior level

Min Experience: 11+ years

Location: Bengaluru
JobType: full-time

₹65,00,000 - ₹90,00,000 a year

Manager Engineering – Backend
AVAILABILITY FOR INTERVIEW: SHOULD BE AVAILABLE ON 12TH /13TH/14TH INPERSON INTERVIEW AT BANGALORE OFFICE

Location :Bangalore :

Positively disrupting an industry that has not seen any innovation in over 50 years, Tekion has challenged the paradigm with the first and fastest cloud-native automotive platform. Our Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC), Automotive Enterprise Cloud (AEC), and Automotive Partner Cloud (APC) connect OEMs, retailers, and consumers through one seamless platform. Utilizing cutting-edge technology, big data, machine learning, and AI, Tekion is transforming the automotive retail ecosystem. We're inventing new technology along the way to overcome barriers and solve big problems, all while having a blast doing it with offices in North America, Asia, and Europe, Tekion employs around 3,000 people worldwide.

Role Summary: We are looking for an Engineering Manager or Senior Engineering Manager who leads from the

codebase, not just from meetings. You will take ownership of an existing AI team of engineers and

grow it to 5–8 while remaining a core hands-on contributor — writing production code, owning critical

architecture decisions, and setting the technical bar through your own work. Your two missions:

embedding AI/ML capabilities across Tekion’s products, and building applied GenAI and agentic

systems that transform dealership workflows.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & Technical Leadership:

• Design the end-to-end AI architecture for Tekion’s platform: model serving, data pipelines, LLM orchestration layers, and integration patterns with existing microservices.
• Make build-vs-buy and model selection decisions (open-source vs. API-based, RAG vs. fine-tuning, agentic vs. deterministic) and own the tradeoffs.
• Write production code in critical-path areas — you are the technical anchor of the team, not a reviewer-only manager.
• Conduct deep code reviews and architecture reviews; raise the engineering bar by example, not just by mandate.
• Own technical debt prioritization and system reliability for AI components in production.

Applied GenAI & Agentic Systems:

• Build LLM-powered agents, RAG pipelines, and conversational AI for dealership workflows (service advisor copilot, F& I assistant, customer communication agents).
• Define the agentic architecture: tool-calling patterns, orchestration frameworks, memory and context management, guardrails, and evaluation harnesses.
• Stay current with the rapidly evolving GenAI landscape and make pragmatic build-vs-integrate decisions (open-source models, fine-tuning, API-based, hybrid).
• Design robust evaluation and observability systems for LLM-powered features to ensure accuracy, safety, and reliability in production.

Team Building & Leadership

Take ownership of the existing AI engineering team; quickly build trust, understand current work streams, and identify gaps in capability or capacity.

Drive targeted hiring to grow the team to 5–8 engineers; define roles, source candidates, and close strong AI/ML talent in a competitive market.

• Lead by doing: your commits, design docs, and technical decisions set the standard for the team.
• Provide hands‑on technical mentorship through pairing, mob programming, and architecture deep‑dives — not just 1:1s.
• Set clear goals, run effective sprint ceremonies, and maintain delivery velocity while protecting space for research and exploration.
• Foster a culture of craftsmanship, experimentation, and demo‑driven development.

Requirements

Must Have:

• 10–14 years of software engineering experience, with at least 1+ year in AI/ML-focused roles (applied ML, NLP, or GenAI).
• Currently writing production code — this is not a role for someone who stopped coding when they became a manager.
• 3+ years of engineering management experience, with a track record of inheriting and growing engineering teams.
• Deep hands‑on experience with LLMs in production: RAG architectures, prompt engineering at scale, agentic tool‑calling, evaluation and observability.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: system design, API design, distributed systems, CI/CD, and production operations.
• Track record of personally architecting and shipping AI-powered features in a product company (not just overseeing others who did).
• Excellent hiring instincts: ability to source, evaluate, and close strong AI/ML talent in a competitive market.
• Strong cross‑functional collaboration skills: experience partnering closely with Product, Design, and Data teams.

Nice to Have:

• Experience in automotive, ERP, or complex vertical SaaS domains with messy real‑world data.
• Familiarity with cloud‑native, microservices‑based architectures at scale.
• Contributions to open‑source AI/ML projects or published research in applied AI.
• Experience with ML platform/infra: model serving, feature stores, experiment tracking, A/B testing frameworks.
• Understanding of responsible AI practices: bias detection, hallucination mitigation, data privacy, and auditability.

Perks and Benefits:

• Competitivecompensation
• Generous stockoptions
• Medical Insurance coverage
• WorkwithsomeofthebrightestmindsfromSiliconValley’smostdominantand successfulcompanies

About the company

Tekion is looking for a talented Solution Architect who wants to be part of building the next‑generation business applications on the cloud. Software Engineer will use his/her passion and expertise for creating world‑class products. He/she will collaborate with the product and engineering teams.

Must-have skills

Java, AGentic AI

Good-to-have skills

GEN AI