Platforms Engineering Manager

Samba; Warszawa; Hybrid; PLN 200,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Samba in Warsaw seeks a frontline manager for the Data Platform and Cloud team within Platforms, guiding day-to-day work and owning the roadmap amid a shift to a new architecture. You will lead a small team, stay hands-on when needed, and influence product teams to adopt the platform solutions.

You are technically credible, able to make architectural calls, and communicate clearly across teams. Startup experience and a growth mindset are valued as part of our culture.

Qualifications

• Technical enough to pass our architecture challenge: not architect-level depth, but credible in the room.
• A real communicator, cross-team persuasion as much as management, stays curious when infra challenges arise.
• Technical background and desire to grow into people management; startup/small-team experience valued; training provided.
• Comfort owning a roadmap and making technical calls, not just running standups; there is no roadmap yet, so you are building it.

Responsibilities

• Own the department's roadmap: decide where to invest, run technology face-offs, justify priorities.
• Manage day-to-day for a small team as frontline manager for Data Platform and Cloud.
• Stay hands-on: handle help-desk level tickets when needed; not a purely strategic role.
• Win adoption: persuade ~80 people across product teams to use Platforms solutions.
• Carry the transformation: help Platforms move to a new architecture supporting agentic solutions.

Skills

Roadmap ownership

People management

Cross-team communication

AWS

Kubernetes

Terraform

Python

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Terraform

Python

Job description

Samba connects the advertising industry. Today, a trillion dollars of media flows through platforms that don't talk to each other, and each one measures its own results. We built the independent alternative: consented first-party data and AI that give the world's biggest advertisers, publishers, and platforms one clear view across all of it.

The next era of advertising will run on AI agents, and those agents will need data they can trust. We're building that foundation, and the agents that act on it. Join us and help build what the industry runs on.

About the Role

You join Platforms, Samba's shared-services organization for infrastructure, cloud, and data platforms, built for the company's shift from semi-monolithic applications to a new architecture supporting agentic solutions. Every product team builds on what Platforms ships. You start as a frontline manager for the Data Platform and Cloud team in a growing department, and we will train you on the management side.

What You'll Do

• Own the Roadmap: Own your department's roadmap rather than executing someone else's: decide where to invest, run technology face-offs, and make the case for why.
• Manage Day to Day: Manage day-to-day for a small team as frontline manager for the Data Platform and Cloud team.
• Stay Hands-On: Pick up a help-desk-level ticket yourself when it counts; this is not a role that stays a layer above the work.
• Win Adoption: Convince the roughly 80 people across product teams who build on Platforms to adopt what you are building, instead of just absorbing their complaints.
• Carry the Transformation: Help Platforms carry the shift from semi-monolithic applications to a new architecture supporting agentic solutions.

What You Bring

• Technical enough to pass our architecture challenge: not architect-level depth, but credible in the room, not just managing it.
• AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, and Python, with exposure to our own data center and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Comfortable owning a roadmap and making technical calls, not just running standups; there is no roadmap yet, so you are building it.
• A real communicator, since this job is cross-team persuasion as much as management, who stays curious rather than defensive when people say the infrastructure is not working for them.
• A technical background and a desire to grow into people management, with startup, small-team, or adjacent-industry experience valued; we will train you on the management side alongside Talent.
• Bonus: comfort as the most senior technical voice in the room without being the most senior architect, and experience turning infrastructure complaints into a roadmap decision.
• Scored, like every Samba hire, on five things: determined yet resilient, naturally curious, low ego, self-aware, and results oriented.

Samba is an equal opportunity employer.

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