Engineering Manager, Core Product Engineering

BackOps; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Meaningful equity

Comprehensive health, dental, and vis

401(k) plan and disability insurance

Flexible time off

Meals in the office

Job summary

BackOps is seeking an engineering leader to guide a team of product engineers building the core reusable workflow automations for our AI-native supply-chain platform. You will work closely with product and design, read code, and participate in design reviews to set high engineering standards.

You will own the evolution of the core product, ensure its reliability at customer scale, and partner with customers to deliver software that ships predictably in production.

Qualifications

• 5+ years managing engineers with hands-on engineering background.
• Strong grounding in software engineering fundamentals: system design, code quality, testing, release practice.
• Track record of shipping quality software predictably and raising engineering standards.
• Experience building with LLMs or AI agents in production.
• Genuine AI-first approach to engineering with practical tooling.

Responsibilities

• Own the evolution of BackOps core product and ensure scale, quality, and reliability.
• Lead and mentor a high-performing team of product engineers.
• Own end-to-end SDLC: architecture, design, code review, testing, release, production run.
• Drive predictable delivery and raise engineering quality.
• Collaborate closely with Product and Design, and with customers.

Skills

Team leadership

System design

Code quality

Design reviews

AI agent experience

Product/Design collaboration

Communications

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Copilot

Codex

Job description

About BackOps

BackOps AI transforms supply-chain operations with agentic AI that automates complex workflows, freeing teams to focus on what matters most. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, we foster a culture of innovation, ownership, and measurable impact.

The Role

Core Product Engineering sits at the core of BackOps, building the product that turns complex supply-chain operations into reusable workflow automations. We are seeking an engineering leader to guide a team of product engineers building the systems our customers run their operations on.

This role is for leaders who think in products as much as in systems. This product area does not have settled patterns yet, so a large part of this job is product and design thinking done alongside Product and Design, not execution handed down from a roadmap. You should want to be close to the work: read code, sit in design reviews, and hold a high bar on how the software gets built.

Your Impact

In this role, you will own the evolution of BackOps core product, making sure it meets the next wave of customer scale, quality, and reliability needs. You will partner with product, design, and customers to deliver software that ships predictably and holds up in production.

• Hire, Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of product engineers.
• Own the evolution of BackOps core product: the reusable workflow automations customers run their operations on, and the product surface end to end.
• Own the software development lifecycle end to end: architecture and design, code review, testing, release, and what happens in production afterward.
• Drive predictable delivery and raise the engineering quality bar. Be accountable for what ships, when it ships, and how well it holds up.
• Partner with Product and Design in a tight, fast loop. Bring your own product opinions, decide quickly, ship, and measure.
• Work directly with customers and design partners. Their operations change constantly, and the product has to change with them.
• Drive how we plan, evaluate, and improve our AI agents, and build the team's fluency in doing it.
• Champion reliability, safety, and performance of the systems running in live customer environments.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years managing engineers, on top of a strong hands‑on engineering background.
• Deep grounding in software engineering fundamentals: system design, code quality, testing, and release practice. You can go deep with your engineers on a design decision.
• A track record of shipping quality software predictably, and of raising the engineering standard of a team.
• Strong product and design instincts. You can hold your own in a design review and you bring your own opinions about what the product should do.
• Experience building with LLMs or AI agents in production, and a clear view on how to tell whether they are working.
• A genuine AI‑first approach to engineering. You use coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex) in your own workflow and you can teach it.
• Comfortable when requirements evolves and the right answer is not known yet.
• Clear written and verbal communication with engineers, designers, customers, and founders.

Nice to Have

• Depth in evals, agent orchestration, multi‑agent architectures, or RAG in production.
• Zero‑to‑one experience: built a product from an idea to product‑market fit.
• Built with design partners, where the customer is in the loop weekly.
• Grown a team through a step change in size, and hired well while doing it.
• Exposure to operationally complex industries (logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, retail).

What Success Looks Like

• Every cross‑team initiative has an owner, a definition of done, and a status you can trust.
• Intake has a front door, and unplanned work is measured weekly rather than estimated once a year.
• The org plans and re‑plans without it being an event.
• Escalation paths are designed, written down, and used in a real incident.
• Systemic problems get fixed once rather than escalated repeatedly.
• Leadership makes decisions on current information without anyone assembling it by hand.

Why BackOps

• Own the core product of an AI‑native company at the point where it is still being defined.
• See your work land in real supply‑chain operations and show up in a customer's week.
• Small team with real autonomy and direct access to founders and customers.
• Backed by exceptional investors and advisors.

Rewards

• Competitive salary and meaningful equity.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401(k) plan, disability insurance, and life insurance.
• Flexible time off.
• Daily meals in the office, and regular team events and offsites.