Senior Engineering Manager - Customer Agent

Klaviyo; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 194,400 - 324,000; Full time

Job summary

Klaviyo in Boston is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager for Customer Agent to lead the team building an AI-native conversational platform that scales to millions of customer interactions.

You will shape technical direction, grow the team, drive architecture, and partner with product, data science, and go-to-market to deliver reliable, impactful AI features.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering with AI-driven product features
• 5+ years in engineering management, including managers
• Strong communication with diverse stakeholders
• Mentor and grow team members
• Deep understanding of scalable architectures

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of managers, leads, full-stack and AI engineers; manage some workstreams
• Define goals, dependencies, and ensure business goals are met
• Participate in interviewing, hiring and leveling
• Develop SMART goals and career plans for direct reports
• Set technical strategy aligned with business goals and maintain reliable AI systems roadmap
• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate needs into AI-driven roadmaps
• Advise on modeling, system design, and implementation decisions
• Improve engineering processes across recruitment, performance, and agile practices
• Stay current with AI trends and leverage opportunities within Klaviyo's ecosystem

Skills

AI-driven features

Full-stack engineering

Engineering leadership

Communication

Hiring & mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/related field

Job description

Senior Engineering Manager, Customer Agent

At Klaviyo, we value the unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives each Klaviyo brings to our workplace each and every day. We believe everyone deserves a fair shot at success and appreciate the experiences each person brings beyond the traditional job requirements. If you’re a close but not exact match with the description, we hope you’ll still consider applying. Want to learn more about life at Klaviyo? Visit klaviyo.com/careers to see how we empower creators to own their own destiny.

Are you looking for one of the most impactful AI-native leadership roles in Boston? Join us at Klaviyo and lead the team building Customer Agent, a conversational AI system that enables brands to interact with their customers at a scale they have never achieved before.

Customer Agent is central to Klaviyo’s vision for AI-powered customer engagement. It delivers real-time, contextually aware conversations that help brands support, convert, and retain millions of consumers. We are just beginning to unlock what is possible, and we are looking for an engineering leader who is eager to define that future.

We are seeking someone with deep experience building and scaling agentic systems and AI-enabled products. You will shape how Customer Agent evolves into a highly extensible and reliable platform. This includes setting technical direction in partnership with your team, developing and growing the team, driving foundational architectural decisions through the team, and keeping pace with rapid advances in the AI ecosystem. Although this is a leadership role, we value candidates with strong hands‑on engineering experience who can engage deeply with complex technical problems.

In this role, you will own the team’s mission, strategy, and roadmap. You will work closely with leaders across engineering, product, data science, and go-to-market functions to define requirements, set priorities, and measure success. You will guide system design, ensure platform reliability, and deliver features that significantly improve customer conversations and outcomes. You will also lead teams that apply machine learning models and LLM-based APIs to create adaptive and personalized conversational agents.

This position is ideal for a leader who wants to shape the next generation of conversational AI and redefine how brands and customers interact at global scale.

How You Will Make a Difference

• Lead and manage a team of managers, leads, plus full-stack and AI engineers and directly manage some workstreams yourself.
• Collaborate on project planning, define achievements, identify dependencies, and ensure business goals are met.
• Actively participate in interviewing, hiring, and team leveling.
• Develop SMART goals and career development plans for direct reports.
• Develop and execute technical strategies aligned with Klaviyo's business goals, ensuring exceptional products and a reliable, user-friendly AI systems roadmap.
• Engage with internal and external stakeholders to understand needs, resolve blockers, manage expectations, and translate customer needs into valuable AI-driven roadmaps and solutions.
• Advise the team on modeling, system design, experimental design, and implementation decisions.
• Improve engineering-wide processes such as recruiting, performance development, communication, and agile development.
• Stay current with emerging AI trends and technologies, identifying and leveraging opportunities within Klaviyo’s ecosystem.

Who You Are

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with extensive work building AI-driven product features in a full-stack capacity and leading teams who have built scaled systems
• 5+ years of engineering management experience, including managing managers or multiple teams
• Exceptional communication skills, capable of collaborating with diverse stakeholders to translate business/product roadmaps into AI-driven technical roadmaps and solutions that add significant customer and business value.
• Motivated to grow the team through developing current members and attracting new talent to expand capabilities.
• Eager to engage with code, understand the product area, and provide applicable technical mentorship.
• In-depth understanding of common engineering architectures for highly scalable systems.
• Proven ability to lead and deliver complex, multi‑quarter projects involving at least two teams.
• Comfortable conducting performance reviews and mentoring team members at all levels.

Bonus Points

• We love recovering entrepreneurs. If you’ve ever run your own thing, you’ll have company on our team.

Location & Compensation

Boston, MA - In-Office Role

Base Pay Range For US Locations: $216,000 – $324,000 USD

In addition to base salary, our total compensation package may include participation in the company’s annual cash bonus plan, variable compensation (OTE) for sales and customer success roles, equity, sign‑on payments, and a comprehensive range of health, welfare, and wellbeing benefits based on eligibility.

Your recruiter can provide more details about the specific salary/OTE range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

This role may require up to 10% travel for purposes such as new hire onboarding, client or partner work if applicable, team meetings, and industry events. Travel is coordinated in advance.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Klaviyo is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non‑discrimination. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, citizenship, national origin, color, religion or religious creed, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, veteran or active military status, marital status, criminal record, genetics, retaliation, sexual harassment or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Important Notice

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Our company takes the security and privacy of job applicants very seriously. We will never ask for payment, bank details, or personal financial information as part of the application process. All our legitimate job postings can be found on our official career site. Please be cautious of job offers that come from non-company email addresses (@klaviyo.com), instant messaging platforms, or unsolicited calls.