Engineering Manager

FeedbackFruits; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 paid holidays per year

Birthday day off

Pension scheme

Volunteering leave

Learning & Development budget €550 + 3

Travel allowance and Swapfiets

Gym access

OpenUp mental health support

Job summary

FeedbackFruits is hiring an Engineering Manager for the System Squad in Amsterdam. You will co-own the backlog with the Product Manager and translate user-driven goals into technical plans for a product-heavy team of five engineers.

You’ll lead day-to-day delivery, grow engineers through regular 1:1s, and set the squad’s technical direction while advancing AI usage, quality, and security across the department.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in software engineering with at least 2 years managing engineers with direct reports.
• Senior-level engineering background on a web stack.
• Experience shaping a roadmap with a PM using user or data insights.
• Proven track record of growing engineers and guiding their development.
• Balance empathy with directness; maintain steadiness under pressure and handle hard conversations.
• AI is part of how you work and you can bring it into a team.
• Experience with Ruby on Rails or Ember.js, EdTech or B2B SaaS at scale; exposure to CI/CD and DORA/DX metrics is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Co-own the backlog and roadmap with the Product Manager and translate product goals into technical plans.
• Lead the squad's day-to-day delivery to keep engineers shipping.
• Foster regular 1:1s and personal growth plans for each engineer.
• Set the squad's technical direction and review code and architecture.
• Use AI in daily work and promote adoption while maintaining quality and security.
• Explain trade-offs clearly to Product, Design and stakeholders, including costs of options not chosen.
• Review delivery and reliability weekly (DORA metrics, cycle time, uptime, incidents) and balance roadmap vs tech debt.
• Contribute to hiring and shaping how the engineering department works beyond the squad.

Skills

Team management

Code & architecture depth

User-focused roadmap

People development

AI adoption

Product collaboration

On-call / SRE awareness

Tools

Ruby on Rails

Ember.js

Job description

Hi, I'm Killian, VP Engineering at FeedbackFruits.

We're moving to one Engineering Manager per squad, and we’re looking for an Engineering Manager for our System Squad. It's our most product-heavy squad: five engineers, three senior and two medior, building the learning tools that teachers and students around the world use every day. Because so much of the squad's work is shaped by what those users need, whoever leads it works closely with the Product Manager on what we build as well as on how we build it.

We're looking for an Engineering Manager with engineering depth, someone senior engineers respect on code and architecture, who has chosen to focus on growing people and still cares a lot about the product. You'd own how the squad works, set its technical standards and lead the way in how it uses AI, and you'd help raise the bar across the wider engineering department too. Our stack is Ruby on Rails and Ember.js, and experience with either is welcome but not required.

What you'll do:

• Co-own the backlog and roadmap with the Product Manager: challenge scope on user value, propose smaller first versions and turn product goals into technical plans

• Lead the squad's day-to-day delivery, from planning to unblocking, so engineers keep shipping

• Grow every engineer through regular 1:1s, direct feedback and a personal growth path in our Career Progression Framework, with a development plan for each of them every year

• Set the squad's technical direction and quality standards, and review code and architecture with enough depth to be genuinely useful while the team does the coding

• Use AI in your own work with good judgement, set the example for the squad and help everyone adopt it while keeping quality and security high

• Explain technical trade-offs clearly to Product, Design and stakeholders, including what the option you didn't pick would cost

• Review delivery and reliability with the squad every week (DORA metrics, PR cycle time, uptime, incidents), balance roadmap work against tech debt, and take your turn in the on-call rotation

• Help hire the people who join the squad, and help shape how the engineering department works beyond it

What you bring:

• You have 6+ years in software engineering, with at least 2 of them managing engineers with direct reports

• Your engineering background is senior-level, so you hold your own on code and architecture in a web stack

• You're curious about users and why the squad builds what it builds. You've shaped a roadmap together with a PM and changed what got built because of something you learned from users or data

• You've grown engineers to the next level and can point to the conversations, including the hard ones, that got them there

• You balance empathy with directness: you build strong relationships and still say the hard thing. You stay steady under pressure and can hold an unpopular position when it matters

• AI is already part of how you work, and you have a clear view on how to bring it into a team

• You see skill gaps as teachable, in yourself and in every engineer, and you ask for feedback as readily as you give it

• You get energy from a scale-up, even when it feels like building the plane while flying it, and you're comfortable with uncertainty and change

• Experience with Ruby on Rails or Ember.js, EdTech or B2B SaaS used at scale, a tech-lead or product-engineer background, or setting up DORA/DX metrics and CI/CD all help, as does an affinity with education

• Excellent written and spoken English, available full-time

What you get:

• 25 paid holidays per year

• A day off for your birthday

• Advantageous pension scheme

• 3 days of volunteering leave per year

• €550 Learning & Development budget per year + 3 days paid leave for learning

• Travel allowance and Swapfiets subscription

• Free access to our office gym

• Unlimited access to mental health support via OpenUp (EU, US, and AUS)