Engineering Manager, Experimentation

LaunchDarkly; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 163,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

RSUs

Health insurance

Vision insurance

Dental insurance

Mental health benefits

Job summary

LaunchDarkly is seeking an Engineering Manager for its Experimentation team to lead the engineers building and operating the core Experimentation product, from setup to results processing and display. The role sits at the intersection of large-scale systems, data science, and user experience, guiding a team to balance speed with quality while delivering valuable customer outcomes.

Exact compensation varies by location, with published pay bands for Zones 1–3 and RSUs, health, vision, dental

Qualifications

• 3+ years of software engineering experience with at least 2 years of people management for backend or infrastructure engineers.
• Proven ability to partner with Product Management to translate business goals into engineering plans with reliable estimations.
• Strong communication skills in distributed, multi-timezone teams.
• Track record of coaching engineers, performance management, and career growth planning.
• Familiarity with observability practices (metrics, tracing, alerting, structured logging) and production incident response.
• Experience with Go or similar backend languages (Java, Python, Rust) is a plus.
• Familiarity with data warehouse platforms (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Databricks) and data pipelines (Airflow, Prequel) is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of engineers with coaching and career growth opportunities.
• Partner with PM and Design to scope, estimate, and sequence roadmap items.
• Own the team's delivery of features within timelines and quality requirements.
• Collaborate with adjacent teams on shared infrastructure decisions and cross-team dependencies.
• Communicate roadmaps, risks, and progress to engineering leadership and stakeholders.
• Build team norms that promote collaboration and reduce silos.
• Drive operational excellence to improve reliability, observability, and incident response for production data infrastructure.
• Participate in hiring to grow the team and raise engineering bar.

Skills

Go

Java

Python

Rust

Observability

Team leadership

Mentorship

Tools

Snowflake

Redshift

BigQuery

Databricks

Airflow

Prequel

Job description

We're looking for an Engineering Manager for our Experimentation team. In this role, you'll lead the team that builds and operates the core Experimentation product, from setup to results processing and display.

LaunchDarkly’s Experimentation team is building one of the company’s most strategic product areas: a platform that helps leading engineering organizations move beyond intuition and make product decisions with real statistical confidence. Sitting at the intersection of large-scale systems, data science, and user experience, the team is creating a best-in-class experimentation product that lets customers set up, manage, and analyze experiments with ease while still earning the trust of even the most rigorous data teams. From warehouse-native analysis to experimentation workflows built on top of LaunchDarkly’s massive feature management scale, this team is tackling ambitious technical problems with visible customer impact and a clear opportunity to define the future of modern software experimentation

As the Engineering Manager, you'll bring a balance of people management and technical leadership as you drive the development of the multiple services that power this product and foster a high-performing, collaborative engineering culture.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and develop a team of engineers, providing coaching, feedback, and career growth opportunities
• Partner with PM and Design to scope, estimate, and sequence roadmap items, making scope tradeoffs in real time.
• Own the team's delivery of features, ensuring completion within timelines and quality requirements.
• Collaborate with adjacent teams (Warehouse Integrations, Metrics, and Guardian) on shared infrastructure decisions and cross-team dependencies
• Communicate roadmaps, risks, and progress clearly to engineering leadership and cross-functional stakeholders
• Build team working norms that promote collaboration, reduce silos, and keep engineers engaged
• Drive operational excellence — improve reliability, observability, and incident response for production data infrastructure
• Participate in hiring to grow the team and raise the engineering bar

Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 2 years managing a team of backend or infrastructure engineers
• Proven ability to partner with Product Management to translate business goals into engineering plans with reliable estimations
• Strong communication skills, especially in distributed team environments with cross-timezone collaboration
• Track record of coaching and developing engineers, including performance management, career growth planning, and technical mentorship
• Familiarity with observability practices (metrics, tracing, alerting, structured logging) and comfort with production incident response
• Experience with Go or comparable backend languages (Java, Python, Rust) is a plus
• Familiarity with data warehouse platforms (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Databricks) and data pipeline tooling (Airflow, Prequel) is a plus

Pay:

Target pay ranges based on Geographic Zones* for Level 2:

• Zone 1: San Francisco/Bay Area or NYC Metropolitan Area, Boston, Seattle - $191,800 - $263,670**
• Zone 2: Irvine, LA, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Austin, Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago - $172,600 - $237,270**
• Zone 3: All other US locations - $163,000 - $224,070**
• All Zones Inclusive of a 10% Bonus Target

LaunchDarkly operates from a place of high trust and transparency; we are happy to state the pay range for our open roles to best align with your needs. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.

*Within the United States, our geographic pay zones are defined by counties surrounding major metropolitan areas.
**Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), health, vision, and dental insurance, and mental health benefits in addition to salary.

About LaunchDarkly:

Modern software delivery was supposed to be the foundation for a thriving digital business but reality has proven otherwise. Slow, inefficient development cycles, costly outages, and fragmented customer experiences are preventing developers from building their best software. The LaunchDarkly platform helps developers innovate on new features faster while protecting them with a safety valve to instantly rewind when things go wrong. Developers can target product experiences to any customer segment and maximize the business impact of every feature. And by gradually rolling out new application components, they escape nightmare "big-bang" technology migrations.

The LaunchDarkly platform was built to guide engineers to the next frontier of DevOps by:

• Improving the velocity and stability of software releases, without the fear of end customer outages
• Delivering targeted experiences by easily personalizing features to customer cohorts
• Maximizing the business impact of every feature through the ability to experiment and optimize
• Coordinating the release and optimization of software to provide consistent experiences across mobile platforms and device types
• Improving the effectiveness and productivity of engineering teams, by providing insights into engineering cadence and stability

At LaunchDarkly, we believe in the power of teams. We're building a team that is humble, open, collaborative, respectful and kind. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. LD invites any applicant to review our written Affirmative Action Plan. To do so, contact People Ops at [e-mail].