Engineering Manager, Activation

Linktree Pty; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 220,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing allowance

Medical, dental, vision insurance

Retirement contributions

Stock option program

Flexible time off

Job summary

Linktree is seeking an hands-on Engineering Manager to lead Activation, a squad focused on getting users started and engaged with our growth platform. As a player-coach, you’ll blend people leadership with hands-on coding, shaping architecture, prototyping, code reviews, and fast delivery while partnering with Product, Design, and Data to drive measurable activation and retention outcomes.

You’ll work in a global, flexible environment offering remote or hybrid options and a comprehensive

Qualifications

• Experienced in modern software development and architecture.
• Proven track record leading engineers and shipping user-facing products.
• Player-coach who stays close to code and technical execution.
• Comfortable with experimentation, analytics, and user insights to drive impact.
• Bias toward action and ability to prioritize tradeoffs while maintaining quality.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a high-performing engineering squad focused on activation and early user experiences.
• Stay hands-on technically, contribute code, prototype solutions, and unblock delivery.
• Partner with Product, Design, and Data to identify opportunities and translate ideas into scalable experiences.
• Connect engineering work to measurable outcomes using data and experiments.
• Drive technical excellence through architecture, reviews, testing, and reliability.
• Set clear outcomes and prioritize effectively to ship high-impact work fast.
• Build for experimentation and iteration to learn from user behavior and scale successful ideas.
• Embed AI tooling and workflows to boost developer productivity.
• Champion reliability with healthy on-call practices and continuous improvement.

Skills

Hands-on

Leadership

Experimentation

AI-forward

Cross-functional

Tools

TypeScript

React

GraphQL

AWS

PHP

Job description

The Role

We’re looking for a hands‑on Engineering Manager to lead our Activation team — the team focused on helping more users successfully get started with Linktree, experience value quickly, and become engaged, retained users.

You’ll lead a small, cross‑functional engineering squad working at the heart of our growth funnel, partnering closely with Product, Design, and Data to identify opportunities, run experiments, and ship experiences that improve activation and drive meaningful user and business outcomes.

This is a player‑coach role for someone who enjoys staying close to the work. You’ll combine strong people leadership with hands‑on technical contribution — guiding architecture, prototyping solutions, reviewing critical work, and writing code when it helps the team move faster.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and mentor a high‑performing engineering squad focused on improving activation and early user experiences.
• Stay hands‑on technically, contributing code, prototyping solutions, and jumping into critical technical work when it helps unblock the team or accelerate delivery.
• Partner with Product, Design, and Data to identify opportunities, shape experiments, and translate ideas into pragmatic, scalable experiences.
• Connect engineering work to measurable outcomes, using data and experimentation to understand what improves activation, engagement, retention, and conversion.
• Drive technical excellence through thoughtful architecture, code reviews, testing practices, performance, and operational reliability.
• Set clear outcomes and prioritize effectively, helping the team navigate tradeoffs and consistently ship high‑impact work at speed.
• Build for experimentation and iteration, enabling the team to test ideas quickly, learn from user behavior, and scale what works.
• Embed AI tooling and workflows to enhance developer productivity, prototyping, and delivery.
• Champion reliability, ensuring healthy on‑call practices and continuous improvement in incident response.

Who You Are

• Experienced in modern software development and architecture, with the technical depth to contribute hands‑on and guide important engineering decisions.
• Proven track record leading engineers and shipping user‑facing products, ideally in a consumer, product‑led, growth, or highly metrics‑driven environment.
• A true player‑coach — you enjoy developing engineers while remaining close to the code and technical execution.
• Comfortable working with experimentation, analytics, and user insights to understand whether what you ship is actually driving impact.
• Strong product instincts and a collaborative approach to working with Product, Design, Data, and Engineering partners.
• Skilled at balancing speed, quality, and scalability, with strong judgment around scope, prioritization, and technical tradeoffs.
• Thoughtful and empathetic people leader who gives clear feedback, supports career development, and creates an environment where engineers can do their best work.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and evolving priorities with a bias toward action.
• Curious and AI‑forward, actively using AI and automation to improve engineering velocity and effectiveness.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with parts of our stack: TypeScript, React, GraphQL, AWS, and PHP.
• Experience with growth, activation, experimentation, onboarding, or conversion‑focused product surfaces.
• Experience working on high‑scale consumer or product‑led products.

Linktree is committed to providing a fair and competitive compensation package including cash, equity, and benefits. The base salary offered for this role is targeted at $220,000 - $250,000 for roles based in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Final offers depend on multiple factors including location, experience, expertise, and role scope, and may vary from the range listed.

Our Story

We’re on a mission to empower anyone to curate, grow, and monetize their digital universe. We created the “link in bio” category — and we’re just getting started. From creators, artists, and entrepreneurs to global brands, we’re redefining how people connect with their communities, showcase their content and promote products — all in one link.

Today, a community of 70+ million use Linktree, including icons like Adidas, TikTok, the UN Environmental Program, The NFL, Manchester United, World Central Kitchen, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and Selena Gomez. With 48,000 new accounts created every day, Linktree is the fastest‑growing leader in our space.

We’ve teamed up with some of the world’s biggest platforms including TikTok, Snap, YouTube, GoFundMe, Spotify, Google, Stripe, Reddit, Laylo, and Kajabi, to unify Linkers’ digital spaces, and we partner with retail brands Amazon, Lululemon, Nike, Target, Sephora, Lululemon, and more to share products they love.

We’re a tight‑knit, passionate team building best‑in‑class tools that make online presence simple, powerful, and yours. If you’re excited by the idea of shaping a new category, setting the standard, and making space for everyone to be seen and succeed, we’d love to meet you.

Where and How We Work

We're a global, diverse team spread across continents with offices in London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and San Francisco. We work together flexibly and you can choose the setup that works best for you: fully remote or a hybrid mix of office and home.

We offer autonomy in how you structure your days and weeks. While we’re mindful of time zones and occasionally collaborate outside the typical 9–5, we lean into async work to keep things flowing. Our culture is family‑friendly and Zoom‑casual where kids, pets, and delivery drivers are welcome.

How we’ll help you thrive

Our approach to benefits considers the whole person and the unique contributions they bring to Linktree. We want the experience at Linktree to be one that enables people to truly thrive so we can Go Further Together (one of our values). Some ways we support you:

• An annual wellbeing allowance to use on things like (but not limited to) fitness memberships, development courses, childcare, travel, charitable donations, pet insurance, home office set‑up - the choice is yours!
• 100% coverage (and 80% for your dependents) of your monthly premiums for medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance for US‑based employees.
• Employer contribution towards your retirement.
• Generous time off for vacation, holidays, parental leave, volunteer time, and other categories.
• Employee stock option program - we want each and every employee to share in the company’s success.

At Linktree, we believe in promoting a culture that celebrates unique backgrounds, talents, and experiences, and we’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are creating an inclusive workplace where every individual feels valued, respected, and has equal opportunities to thrive. We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive environment where all team members have a sense of belonging. Linktree welcomes all people regardless of sex, gender identity, race, ethnicity, disability, pregnancy, age, or other lived experience. If you require accommodations to fully participate in our opportunities, please don't hesitate to reach us at [e-mail] – your needs are important to us.