Engineering Manager - Brands Data Platform

Madrona Venture Labs; Bellevue (WA); Hybrid; USD 169,000 - 219,000; Full time

Job summary

iSpot is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead the Brands Team, owning ingestion, cataloging, and ML-driven metadata at scale. You will ensure a reliable source-of-truth for downstream measurement and attribution, with ownership of backend systems and internal tools.

You will drive end-to-end lifecycle from design through release, enforce quality standards, and mentor engineers. Hybrid work with Bellevue, WA or NYC options; equity and competitive cash compensation are offered.

Qualifications

• Proven track record managing high-performing engineering teams delivering production-grade, distributed software at scale.
• Deep domain expertise in big data architectures - high-throughput ingestion, media metadata systems, or large-scale data platforms.
• Experience embedding AI/ML into production workflows for automated tagging, identification, or content classification.
• Architectural fluency across backend data systems and frontend technologies used for internal tools.
• Experience defining and enforcing quality gates (automated testing frameworks, release criteria).
• Strong sprint-planning discipline balancing feature velocity with infrastructure stability and data integrity.
• Experience building structured growth plans for engineers and reducing single-person coverage risk.
• Excellent cross-functional communication with Product, Data Science, and Operations.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategy for upgrading and refactoring ingestion and cataloging systems to improve throughput, reduce latency, and pay down technical debt.
• Embed machine learning and AI into the content cataloging workflow to automate creative identification, metadata extraction, and fingerprinting at scale.
• Ensure the accuracy and reliability of massive ad datasets, partnering cross-functionally to evolve platform capabilities in support of complex attribution modeling.
• Own onboarding and maintenance of large third-party data sources (ACR, set-top-box, streaming, panel signals).
• Own the architecture and usability of internal-facing tools and dashboards for internal power users.
• Translate platform strategy into well-scoped sprints and manage daily operating cadence.
• Coach and mentor engineers, set development goals, and close coverage gaps with deliberate pairing.
• Champion AI-assisted development practices and cost monitoring within the team.

Skills

Engineering management

Big data architectures

AI/ML in production

Backend data systems

Frontend internal tools

Quality gates

Sprint planning

Cross-functional comms

Job description

iSpot is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead the Brands Team, owning ingestion, cataloging, and ML-driven metadata at scale. You will ensure a reliable source-of-truth for downstream measurement and attribution, with ownership of backend systems and internal tools.

You will drive end-to-end lifecycle from design through release, enforce quality standards, and mentor engineers. Hybrid work with Bellevue, WA or NYC options; equity and competitive cash compensation are offered.