Engineering Team Lead / Engineering Manager - Python / Defense

Strativ Group; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Strativ Group is hiring an Engineering Team Lead / Manager to guide a distributed backend team powering autonomous coding agents. You will shape architecture, drive engineering standards, and stay hands-on with backend and distributed systems challenges.

We are a remote-first startup with monthly travel to the Boston HQ. You will mentor engineers, influence hiring, and define the technical roadmap while delivering scalable, secure production systems and collaborating with researchers and

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with Python and backend systems.
• Proven experience leading & developing engineering teams (5+ engineers).
• Strong distributed systems and backend architecture experience.
• Experience owning technical direction and delivering production systems.
• Experience hiring, mentoring and developing engineers.
• Background in compilers, static analysis, or language tooling (desirable).
• Experience in defense (desirable).
• Exposure to formal methods or verification (a plus).
• Comfortable remaining hands-on and contributing technically.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop an engineering team responsible for backend infra behind autonomous coding agents.
• Define and own the technical roadmap and architecture direction.
• Mentor engineers, participate in hiring, and shape engineering practices.
• Collaborate with researchers and leadership to turn ideas into robust systems.
• Ensure production systems are reliable, scalable, and secure; contribute technically when needed.

Skills

Python

Backend systems

Team leadership

Hiring & mentoring

Technical direction

Distributed systems

Code reviews

Compilers

Static analysis

Formal methods

Job description

** Please note: this position is remote-first, however there will be monthly travel to the Boston, MA HQ.

A Frontier AI startup backed by $170m in funding is hiring an Engineering Team Lead / Manager to lead the team building the distributed backend systems powering autonomous coding agents. This is a rare opportunity to join at a pivotal stage of growth, working alongside a team that has already assembled some of the most credible technical talent in the industry. The team includes alumni from OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft AI, and NASA, combining deep foundation model work with serious mathematical research.

As Engineering Team Lead, you'll take ownership of a highly technical engineering team responsible for building the infrastructure behind large-scale autonomous engineering. You'll provide technical direction across architecture, engineering standards and delivery, while remaining hands-on with some of the most challenging backend and distributed systems problems in the company. You'll work closely with researchers, engineers and leadership to turn ambitious ideas around autonomous agents into robust, scalable production systems.

This is a role for an experienced engineering leader who enjoys operating at the intersection of people leadership and deep technical execution. You'll help shape the team's technical roadmap, mentor and develop engineers, contribute to hiring, and establish the engineering practices needed as the organization scales. At the same time, you'll remain close enough to the code and architecture to make meaningful technical contributions and guide critical design decisions.

You'll be joining at a stage where the core infrastructure and engineering organization are still being defined, giving you significant influence over both the technology and the team that will underpin the company's product for years to come. Day to day, this means leading engineers working on orchestration and execution infrastructure for large-scale code transformation, ensuring systems are reliable, scalable and secure in production, and collaborating closely with research teams to translate cutting-edge AI concepts into battle-tested software.

Experience Required:

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with deep expertise in Python and backend systems
• Proven experience leading & developing high-performing engineering teams (of at least 5 h/c)
• Strong distributed systems and backend architecture experience
• Track record of owning technical direction and delivering complex production systems
• Experience hiring, mentoring and developing engineers
• Background in compilers, static analysis, or language tooling (desirable)
• Experience in Defense (desirable)
• Exposure to formal methods or verification (a plus)
• Comfortable remaining hands-on and contributing technically

This is an opportunity to build and lead the engineering team inside a well-funded, research-driven company operating at the cutting edge of AI and systems engineering. You'll have the opportunity to shape not only the architecture of a category-defining product, but also the engineering culture, team and technical direction behind it. If you're an experienced engineering leader who wants to combine people leadership with genuinely difficult technical problems at the frontier of AI, this is it.