Engineering Manager, Journeys

Attentive; New York (NY); On-site; USD 227,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health & wellness

Equity

Job summary

Attentive is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Journeys team, building and operating the event-driven customer communications platform across SMS, email, and push. You will guide architecture, oversee a high-performing engineering squad, and partner with Product, Content Tools, and other teams to deliver reliable, scalable journeys.

You will hire and coach engineers, establish delivery rhythms, and drive improvements in reliability and observability while balancing urgent customer needs

Qualifications

• 2+ years of people-management experience in software teams.
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong foundation in distributed, event-driven systems and APIs.
• Experience guiding architecture across user-facing experiences and backend systems.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and drive delivery.
• Experience with incident response and on-call health.
• Clear, proactive communicator and people leader.
• Familiar with modern engineering practices, including AI-powered workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Journeys team's roadmap, delivery, and technical direction.
• Partner with Product, Design, implementation teams, and engineering peers to refine requirements and priorities.
• Improve reliability, observability, performance, and scale of journey execution.
• Hire, coach, and provide actionable feedback with growth opportunities.
• Establish operating rhythms, delivery plans, and stakeholder communication; surface risks early.
• Balance immediate customer needs with durable platform capabilities.

Skills

People leadership

Hiring and coaching

Delivery planning

Communication

Event-driven systems

Architecture guidance

Cross-functional collaboration

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

Tools

Java

Spring Boot

React/TypeScript/GraphQL

PostgreSQL

DynamoDB

Kubernetes

Istio

Terraform

Datadog

Temporal

Job description

Attentive® is the AI marketing platform for 1:1 personalization redefining the way brands and people connect. We’re the only marketing platform that combines powerful technology with human expertise to build authentic customer relationships. By unifying SMS, RCS, email, and push notifications, our AI-powered personalization engine delivers bespoke experiences that drive performance, revenue, and loyalty through real-time behavioral insights.

Recognized as the#1provider in SMS Marketing by G2, Attentive partners with more than 8,000 customers across 70+ industries. Leading global brands like Crate and Barrel, Urban Outfitters, and Carter’s work with us to enable billions of interactions that power tens of billions in revenue for our customers.

Attentive is looking for an Engineering Manager to lead the Journeys team, which builds the product and systems that enable brands to create, publish, and run automated, event-driven customer communications across SMS, email, and push.

You’ll lead engineers working across a visual journey-building experience and the distributed workflow platform behind it. You’ll balance product delivery with the operational rigor required for a customer-facing messaging system—improving reliability, observability, performance, and the ease with which customers and implementation teams can understand and troubleshoot their journeys.

You’ll develop a high-performing team, guide technical and architectural decisions, and partner closely with Product, Messaging Platform, Content Tools, and other engineering teams. You’ll create clarity across complex initiatives and dependencies while keeping the team focused on scalable platform capabilities that improve customer outcomes.

What You’ll Accomplish

• Lead the Journeys team’s roadmap, delivery, and technical direction across the journey-building experience and workflow platform
• Partner with Product, Design, implementation teams, and engineering peers to refine requirements, prioritize investment, negotiate tradeoffs, and resolve dependencies
• Improve the reliability, observability, performance, and scale of customer-facing journey execution
• Build a high-performing team through hiring, coaching, actionable feedback, and clear growth opportunities
• Establish clear operating rhythms, delivery plans, and stakeholder communication; surface risks early and remove blockers
• Balance immediate customer needs with durable, reusable product and platform capabilities

Your Expertise

• 2+ years of experience managing software engineers and 7+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong technical foundation in distributed, event-driven systems, including workflow orchestration, APIs, data modeling, and scalable customer-facing applications
• Experience guiding architecture and delivery across user-facing product experiences and high-volume backend systems, balancing customer impact, reliability, performance, and maintainability
• Proven ability to partner with Product, Design, implementation teams, and engineering peers to refine requirements, prioritize work, negotiate tradeoffs, and deliver complex cross-functional initiatives
• Experience leading reliable, operationally mature services, including incident response, on-call health, observability, and technical-debt reduction
• A thoughtful people leader who hires, coaches, gives actionable feedback, manages performance, and builds an inclusive, high-accountability team culture
• Clear, proactive communicator who manages delivery plans and stakeholder expectations, surfaces risks early, removes blockers, and uses modern—including AI-powered—engineering practices to improve team effectiveness

What We Use

• Java and Spring Boot microservices, built with Gradle
• React, TypeScript, and GraphQL for the visual journey-building experience
• PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, and S3 for data and workflow storage
• Apache Pulsar and gRPC for distributed, event-driven communication
• Kubernetes on AWS EKS, with Istio, Terraform, Helm, and Datadog
• Temporal, feature flags, and workflow-orchestration tooling for reliable automation at scale

You’ll get competitiveperks and benefits , from health & wellness to equity, to help you bring your best self to work.

For US based applicants:

• The US base salary range for this full-time position is $227,000 - $270,000 annually+ equity + benefits
• Our salary ranges are determined by role, level and location

Learn more about AWAKE , Attentive’s collective of employee resource groups.

At Attentive, we know that our Company's strength lies in the diversity of our employees. Attentive is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Our policy is to provide equal employment opportunities for all employees, applicants and covered individuals regardless of protected characteristics. We prioritize and maintain a fair, inclusive and equitable workplace free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Attentive is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities. If you need any assistance or reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know.

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity information (Completion is voluntary and will not subject you to adverse treatment)

Our company values diversity. To ensure that we comply with reporting requirements and to learn more about how we can increase diversity in our candidate pool, we invite you to voluntarily provide demographic information in a confidential survey at the end of this application. Providing this information is optional. It will not be accessible or used in the hiring process, and has no effect on your opportunity for employment.