Engineering Manager, AI CICD

Chainguard; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Chainguard is seeking an engineering manager to lead a fast-moving team shipping tools that developers will actually use — the Guardener, hardened GitHub Actions, Chainguard Agent Skills, and new products built on our microVM sandbox platform.

You'll own these products end-to-end: hire and grow the team, set the roadmap with Product, and stay hands‑on enough to dig into the code. This is a high‑ownership role for someone who moves fast and ships iteratively.

Qualifications

• 2+ years experience managing engineers with a genuine, sustained passion for leading and growing a team.
• Track record of shipping products or major features and owning the results.
• Strong technical background; ability to read code, review designs, and reason about architecture and tradeoffs (Go preferred).
• Experience building CI/CD systems, developer tooling, or product-facing platforms; familiarity with containers, Kubernetes, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with AI tooling and applying it to customer problems.
• Comfort with autonomy, ambiguity, a bias for action, and shipping iteratively.
• Strong communication skills and collaborative work with Product and customers.

Responsibilities

• Own a portfolio of products end-to-end — the Guardener, hardened GitHub Actions, Chainguard Agent Skills, and emerging microVM-based products — from roadmap through implementation, rollout, and iteration.
• Hire, lead, and grow a small team of strong engineers. Remove blockers and create the conditions for them to do their best work.
• Stay technically hands-on: review designs and PRs, prototype when it unblocks the team, and unblock the team
• Partner closely with Product on a roadmap with real deadlines — help the team prioritize tradeoffs and ship iteratively rather than waiting for perfect.
• Navigate ambiguous problems and find a clear path forward. You take initiative rather than waiting for complete specs.
• Own the quality and reliability of what you ship, and stay close to customers to turn their feedback directly into the roadmap.

Skills

People management

Ship products

Go programming

CI/CD systems

Kubernetes

Cloud infrastructure

AI tooling

Communication

Autonomy

Tools

GitHub Actions

Kubernetes

Cloud platforms

Job description

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.

Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

The role, in a nutshell

At Chainguard we're focused on securing the software supply chain, and we're building the next generation of products at the intersection of security and AI. We're looking for an engineering manager to lead a fast-moving team shipping tools that developers will actually use — the Guardener, hardened GitHub Actions, Chainguard Agent Skills, and new products built on our microVM sandbox platform.

You'll own these products end-to-end: hire and grow the team, set the roadmap with Product, and stay hands‑on enough to dig into the code. This is a high‑ownership role for someone who moves fast, takes initiative, and measures success by what ships and who uses it.

What you'll do:

• Own a portfolio of products end-to-end — the Guardener, hardened GitHub Actions, Chainguard Agent Skills, and emerging microVM-based products — from roadmap through implementation, rollout, and iteration.
• Hire, lead, and grow a small team of strong engineers. Remove blockers and create the conditions for them to do their best work.
• Stay technically hands‑on: review designs and PRs, prototype when it unblocks the team, and unblock the team
• Partner closely with Product on a roadmap with real deadlines — help the team prioritize tradeoffs and ship iteratively rather than waiting for perfect.
• Navigate ambiguous problems and find a clear path forward. You take initiative rather than waiting for complete specs.
• Own the quality and reliability of what you ship, and stay close to customers to turn their feedback directly into the roadmap.

What we're looking for:

• 2+ years experience managing engineers with a genuine, sustained passion for leading and growing a team.
• A track record of shipping products or major features and owning the results.
• Strong technical background — you can still read code, review designs, and reason about architecture and tradeoffs. Proficiency with Go or strong readiness to ramp quickly.
• Experience building CI/CD systems, developer tooling, or product-facing platforms; familiarity with containers, Kubernetes, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with AI tooling and genuine enthusiasm for applying it to complex customer problems
• Comfort with autonomy and ambiguity, a bias for action, and a habit of shipping iteratively.
• Strong communication skills and a collaborative spirit working closely with Product and customers.