Engineering Manager

Phoenixoutcomes; Arlington (VA); Remote; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

PhoenixTeam seeks an Engineering Manager to lead engineers within the Chief Technology Office. You will coach for performance, recruit and onboard staff, and drive career growth while ensuring staffing aligns with ongoing client engagements.

The role emphasizes people operations, compensation alignment, and development of a high-performing, remote-first engineering team. Hands-on coding is not required, but strong engineering-management judgment is essential.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, or technical delivery with leadership responsibility.
• Experience staffing engineers across projects and managing allocations, capacity, or utilization.
• Experience leading a structured performance-review and calibration process against a career framework.
• Sufficient technical familiarity with modern software delivery and cloud environments; AI expertise not required.
• Proven ability to develop engineers, navigate performance conversations, support retention, and exercise sound judgment.
• Strong written communication, forecasting, organization, and stakeholder management across distributed teams.

Responsibilities

• Directly manage an initial team of seven engineers with regular 1:1s, goals, coaching, and development plans.
• Own performance reviews, calibration, and fair evaluation against the engineering leveling framework with HR involvement.
• Partner with the Managing Director on compensation and progression decisions, ensuring clear communication and documentation.
• Build a remote-first team culture, addressing workload, burnout, engagement, and career development risks.
• Own staffing plans across internal initiatives and client engagements, considering skills, levels, and availability.
• Balance business needs with individual growth, workload, and wellbeing; resolve staffing conflicts with leadership across teams.
• Forecast capacity needs, hiring gaps, bench time, and dependencies; surface risks early to leadership.
• Collaborate with HR and recruiting on requisitions, role definitions, interviews, hiring, and onboarding.
• Maintain accurate headcount and personnel records and report on utilization, staffing forecasts, attrition, and development activity.
• Improve repeatable people-management practices through documented workflows and tools while protecting confidential information.

Skills

People management

Staffing planning

Performance reviews

Forecasting

Communication

Hiring

Coaching

Leadership

Tools

Float

Kantata

Jira

Job description

Overview

The Engineering Manager is the dedicated people leader for engineers within PhoenixTeam's Chief Technology Office, initially managing seven direct reports. Reporting to the Managing Director, Chief AI Engineer, this role owns the human side of engineering: regular coaching, performance, hiring and onboarding, career development, retention, and staffing engineers effectively across internal work and client engagements.

PhoenixTeam separates engineering people leadership from technical-domain ownership. Architecture, engineering standards, implementation decisions, delivery execution, and technical-debt prioritization remain with the appropriate technical and domain leaders. This manager owns staffing and people operations within agreed policies and headcount, and works with the Managing Director to align on compensation and career progression before carrying decisions through. Deep AI expertise or hands-on coding is not a requirement; strong engineering-management judgment is.

Key Functions

• Directly manage an initial team of seven engineers through regular one-on-ones, clear goals, constructive feedback, coaching, and meaningful individual development plans.
• Own performance reviews, calibration, and equitable evaluation against the engineering leveling framework; resolve performance concerns promptly and appropriately with HR.
• Partner with the Managing Director on compensation and progression decisions, then own clear communication, documentation, and follow-through within agreed company policies.
• Build a respectful, remote-first team culture; address workload, burnout, engagement, retention, and career-development risks before they become avoidable losses.
• Own current and forward-looking staffing plans across internal initiatives and client engagements, accounting for skills, levels, assignments, allocation, availability, and expected roll-offs.
• Balance business needs and utilization with individual growth, workload, and wellbeing; resolve staffing conflicts with project, delivery, and engineering-domain leaders.
• Forecast capacity needs, hiring gaps, bench time, and key-person dependencies; surface options and risks to the Managing Director early.
• Partner with HR and recruiting on requisitions, role definitions, structured interviews, hiring, and onboarding; establish consistent evaluation and mentorship practices.
• Maintain accurate headcount and personnel records and report established measures such as utilization, staffing forecasts, attrition, hiring progress, and development activity.
• Improve repeatable people-management and staffing practices through documented workflows, clear communication, and appropriate tools while protecting confidential employee information.

Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, or technical delivery, including at least 3 years directly managing engineers with genuine responsibility for hiring, reviews, coaching, and personnel decisions.
• Demonstrated success staffing engineers across simultaneous projects or engagements and managing allocations, capacity, utilization, or comparable resource-planning measures.
• Experience leading a structured performance-review and calibration process against an established engineering career or leveling framework.
• Enough technical familiarity with modern software delivery and cloud environments to assess skills, workloads, and staffing risks credibly; specialized AI expertise is not required.
• Proven ability to develop engineers, navigate difficult performance conversations, support retention, and exercise sound judgment in sensitive personnel matters.
• Strong written communication, forecasting, organization, and ability to work effectively with distributed engineering, HR, and business stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications or Skills

• People management in technology consulting, professional services, or organizations staffing engineers across multiple client engagements.
• Experience guiding teams through organizational change, employee development, mentorship, or retention initiatives.
• Experience in mortgage, financial services, or another regulated-industry technology organization.
• Familiarity with capacity or resource-management tools such as Float, Kantata, Jira, or comparable systems.
• Formal engineering-management, coaching, or leadership-development training.

Position Details

• Employment type: Full-Time, W2 employee; not a contract or 1099 position.
  
• Team: Seven direct reports initially; people-management and staffing ownership, not technical-domain ownership.
• Work arrangement: Remote-first with flexible arrangements and regular collaboration across time zones.
• Travel: Up to 10% may be required based on business needs.

About PhoenixTeam

PhoenixTeam partners with organizations to deliver real results across GenAI, data, product, and technology. We help clients modernize legacy systems, redesign complex workflows, and move practical AI and digital solutions into production in regulated environments.

PhoenixTeam is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.