Senior Engineering Manager, Platform & Data Systems

Carbon Mapper; United States; Hybrid; USD 210,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Generous time-off policy

Professional development

Job summary

Carbon Mapper is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead a team of senior engineers across software platforms, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure. You will guide technical decisions, support career growth, and ensure delivery of high-quality data products.

You will partner with a Technical Project Manager and VP to shape roadmaps while maintaining hands-on engagement on key systems. The role emphasizes secure design, reliability, and cross-functional collaboration in a hybrid,

Qualifications

• 8+ years of engineering management experience, including supporting senior individual contributors.
• Hands-on engineering background in Python and another backend language, with ability to read, review, and contribute to production code.
• Hands-on experience operating production AWS infrastructure for application, data, and platform systems (Lambda, Step Functions, ECS, AWS Batch, CloudWatch, S3, IAM, networking).
• Experience with CI/CD and deployment automation (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Terraform/IaC, containerized deploys) and a track record of safe, frequent releases.
• Observability and reliability practices (monitoring, logging, alerting, on-call) for production services.
• Applied AI engineering experience with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or agentic AI workflows.
• Experience partnering with technical project or program managers, aligning people management with execution processes.
• Ability to identify risks, remove blockers, and support predictable delivery in a dynamic environment.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills; ability to build trust and provide clear feedback.
• Experience hiring and onboarding engineers in a growing organization.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support a team of senior engineers across software platforms, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure.
• Oversee people management, performance reviews, career development, and feedback.
• Provide day-to-day guidance, remove blockers, and support engineers in delivering reliable outputs.
• Balance hands-on contributions with management duties across backend services and data pipelines.
• Partner with the Senior Technical Project Manager on planning and resourcing.
• Contribute to scoping, estimation, feasibility assessment, and sequencing of work.
• Participate in sprint ceremonies and planning; coordinate with the Senior Technical Project Manager.
• Provide technical leadership on architecture and system design for scalable, cloud-based data platforms.
• Own reliability, performance, and scalability of production services and data pipelines; manage capacity and on-call health.
• Champion secure design and IAM/data access controls.
• Support engineers in navigating tradeoffs and dependencies; escalate risks as needed.
• Promote CI/CD, testing, documentation, observability, and deployment practices.
• Identify delivery risks early and align with stakeholders for predictable execution.
• Collaborate with product, science, operations, and external partners for alignment.
• Support hiring and onboarding to enable new team members to contribute.
• Establish regular 1:1s and feedback loops to maintain team effectiveness.
• Foster ownership, transparency, and collaborative problem solving.
• Improve processes for clarity and predictability while minimizing overhead.

Skills

Engineering management

Python

Team leadership

Communication skills

AI engineering experience

Cross-functional collaboration

Problem solving

Delivery planning

Back-end development

Tools

AWS

GitLab CI

GitHub Actions

Terraform/IaC

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Carbon Mapper is a non-profit organization based in Pasadena, CA with the mission to drive greenhouse gas emission reductions by making methane and carbon dioxide data accessible and actionable. We leverage remote sensing technology to detect,pinpoint, and quantify methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at the scale of individual facilities. All of our methane and CO2 data is made publicly available for non-commercial use on our Carbon Mapper Data Portal to provide decisionmakers with the information they need to prioritize and take mitigation action.

Carbon Mapper also works with stakeholders and decision makers to fill data gaps, lead on cutting edge science, collaborate to drive reductions, and advance education and insights on emissions globally. To do this, we work with partners to leverage a constellation of satellites. Data from these satellites will offer the next major step in scaling up the organization’s robust data portal featuring thousands of direct observations of global methane and CO2 super-emitters.

To learn more about Carbon Mapper, please visit us at https://carbonmapper.org. To view our data, please visit us at https://data.carbonmapper.org.

About The Role

Carbon Mapper is looking for a Senior Engineering Manager who will lead and support a team of senior engineers working across Carbon Mapper’s software platforms, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure. This role applies a collaborative leadershipapproach to provide day-to-day people management, remove blockers, and guide technical decisions to support the delivery of high-quality, reliable software and data products.

The Senior Manager will lead the teams behind the systems that turn satellite observations into publicly accessible methane and CO₂ data. Deep platform fundamentals matter most here; geospatial and remote-sensing context can be learned on the job.

What you’ll own: People management and career growth, technical quality and architecture, delivery outcomes, hiringand onboarding, and engineering practices (code quality, testing, observability, reliability).

What your partners will own: Our Senior Technical Project Manager runs sprint facilitation, ceremonies, and process logistics; the VP of Products & Engineering owns roadmap prioritization. You’ll partner closely with both, but are freed from running the agile mechanics so you can focus on your engineers and the systems.

This is a hands‑on management role requiring the ability to build trust with senior individual contributors, operate effectively in across‑disciplinary environment, and contribute directly to development work on key systems and initiatives.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead and support a team of senior engineers across software platforms, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure
• Oversee people management, including performance management, career development, and regular feedback
• Provide day‑to‑day guidance, remove blockers, and support engineers in delivering high‑quality, reliable outputs
• Balance hands‑on technical contributions to backend services, data pipelines, and AWS infrastructurewith management responsibilities, focusing individual contributor time on high‑impact work
• Partner with the Senior Technical Project Manager on planning, prioritization, resourcing, and execution
• Contribute to scoping, estimation, feasibility assessment, and sequencing of work
• Participate actively in sprint ceremonies and planning, partnering with the Senior Technical Project Manager who leads sprint facilitation
• Provide technical leadership on architecture and system design — including scalable, cloud‑based system and data architecture — and set technical direction on cross‑cutting decisions in collaboration with senior engineers
• Own the reliability, performance, and scalability of production services and data pipelines, including capacity planning, SLAs, and on‑call health
• Champion secure system design and access control (e.g., IAM and data access) to protect our systems and the public data platform
• Support engineers in navigating technical tradeoffs, dependencies, and ambiguity; escalate risks as needed
• Promote consistent engineering practices across code quality, testing, documentation, CI/CD and deployment,observability, and pipeline reliability
• Identify delivery risks early and partner with stakeholders to maintain predictable execution
• Collaborate with product, science, operations, and external partners to ensure alignment and clear expectations
• Support hiring efforts and lead onboarding to enable new team members to contribute effectively
• Establish regular 1:1s and feedback mechanisms to support team effectiveness and engagement
• Foster a culture of ownership, transparency, and collaborative problem‑solving
• Contribute to scalable processes that improve clarity and predictability while minimizing unnecessary overhead

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) Must-Have Skills & Experience:

• 8+ years of engineering management experience, including the support of senior individual contributors
• Hands‑on engineering background in Python and at least one other backend language, with the ability to read, review, and contribute to production code
• Hands‑on experience operating production AWS infrastructure for application, data, and platform systems — Lambda, Step Functions, ECS, AWS Batch, CloudWatch, S3, IAM, and networking
• Experience with CI/CD and deployment automation (e.g., GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Terraform/IaC, containerizeddeploys) and a track record of safe, frequent releases
• Experience standing up or improving observability and reliability practices (monitoring, logging, alerting, on‑call) for production services
• Applied AI engineering experience with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or agentic AI workflows
• Experience supporting engineers working across multiple technical domains
• Experience partnering with technical project or program managers, with clear alignment between people management and execution processes
• Demonstrated ability to identify risks, remove blockers, and support predictable delivery in a dynamic environment
• Ability to break down complex problems and support teams in navigating ambiguity
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build trust and provide clear, constructive feedback
• Experience improving team effectiveness, engineering quality, and system reliability in a small or scaling organization
• Ability to collaborate effectively with engineers, scientists, and cross‑functional partners
• Experience hiring and onboarding engineers in a growing technical organization

Nice-to-Have Skills:

• Exposure to geospatial systems, remote sensing, or scientific computing — or strong interest in learning the domain (we'll teach the geospatial specifics)
• Experience working with large‑scale data processing or production data pipelines
• Experience supporting machine learning or algorithm‑driven data products in production
• Experience working in cross‑disciplinary environments involving science, engineering, and operations

Hours

This is a full‑time, exempt position (40 hours per week). Occasional after‑hours and weekend work may be required to meet deadlines. This role also participates in a compensated on‑call rotation, typically not exceeding one week per month.

Location

Carbon Mapper is headquartered in Pasadena, California, but we embrace the virtual office and are continuing to grow our team across the United States.

Compensation

The total compensation for this opportunity includes a base salary range of $210,000 –

$225,000/year. This is our target compensation range and is subject to multiple factors including level, experience, and location. As you go through our interview process, our recruiter will work with you to identify a competitive base salary within the proposedrange.

As a Carbon Mapper employee, you will have access to a wide range of benefits including affordable health coverage (medical, dental, vision), a generous time‑off policy, professional development, and more.

Carbon Mapper is an equal opportunity employer that believes a diverse team will not just lead to a better working environment, but will also help us create better products and services.

Carbon Mapper is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. If any reasonable accommodation is needed in our process, please reach out to [e-mail].