Senior Manager of dbt Fusion

Fivetran; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Fivetran is seeking a hands-on Senior Engineering Manager to lead the Core team behind dbt V2, the next-generation engine powering the dbt platform.

You will guide a ~8-engineer group, balancing feature work with engine maintenance, and collaborate closely with Product to translate ambiguous requirements into practical engineering milestones. This role sits in a cross-functional product area including orchestration, IDE experiences, adapters, warehouses, and LakeCompute.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading a software engineering team.
• Strong judgment balancing delivery with quality and technical debt.
• Experience translating product strategy into engineering roadmaps.
• Familiarity with Rust and systems programming.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Core team through roadmap to GA, coordinating with product and other teams.
• Mentor engineers and grow a high-performing org.
• Translate ambiguous requirements into actionable scope and estimates.
• Ensure stability and performance of the dbt V2 engine as it evolves.

Skills

Leadership & People Mgmt

Cross-functional Collaboration

Product Partnership

Rust Systems Programming

Engine Design & Architecture

Technical Mentorship

Delivery & Planning

Open Source/Dev Communities

Tools

Rust

Job description

• We’re looking for a hands-on Senior Engineering Manager to lead the Core team behind dbt V2, dbt’s next-generation engine
• This is a backfill role for an engineering leader who can combine strong software-engineering judgment with people leadership, product partnership, and the ability to navigate a highly cross-functional technical area
• The Core team is responsible for building, maintaining, and evolving the Rust-based engine that powers dbt Fusion. The team primarily works on the dbt V2 runtime itself, SQL language features powered by Static Analysis, and new ELT primitives
• The role sits at the center of several parts of the dbt product: the engine and orchestration, the IDE and developer experience, adapters and data warehouses, and our new compute offering, LakeCompute
• You’ll help the team make sound technical and product decisions while keeping a stable GA product moving forward
• The Core team is part of a broader organization that includes adapters, growth, the VS Code extension, compute, and other closely connected teams. It partners frequently with Product and with the teams responsible for orchestration, IDE experiences, adapters, and LakeCompute
• Lead, coach, and develop a fluid team of approximately 8 engineers working on a critical part of the dbt product
• Establish clarity across a technically demanding roadmap with multiple product and engineering stakeholders
• Partner closely with Product to translate ambiguous requirements into realistic engineering scope, sequencing, and estimates
• Help the team balance new feature development, engine maintenance, framework modernization, documentation, and the stability of a GA product
• Guide end-to-end technical design across the engine and its integration points with orchestration, the IDE, adapters, warehouses, and late compute
• Support engineers in making sound tradeoffs across product value, technical quality, performance, compatibility, and delivery risk
• Actively contribute to technical design and implementation alongside the team
• Work with peer engineering leaders to coordinate initiatives that span multiple teams and systems
• Build an environment where engineers can do high-quality work, grow their scope, and take ownership of meaningful technical problems
• Help shape the next phase of dbt Fusion as a language-aware transformation engine used by the broader data community

• Demonstrated judgment in balancing roadmap delivery with reliability, maintainability, technical debt, and product quality
• Comfort operating in a fluid environment where team boundaries, priorities, and scope may evolve
• A hands-on technical orientation, including a willingness and ability to stay close to code and engineering details
• Worked on products with substantial technical complexity, integration surfaces, or platform dependencies
• A track record of developing strong engineers while maintaining a high technical bar
• Led a software team through the full development lifecycle: discovery, design, implementation, testing, release, operation, and iteration
• Experience in data transformation, orchestration, query engines, databases, developer tools, compilers, language tooling, or a closely related area. Direct dbt experience is helpful but not required
• Ability to translate complex or ambiguous product requirements into credible engineering estimates, milestones, and tradeoffs
• The ability to explain complex technical systems clearly to engineers, product partners, and candidates with different levels of technical depth
• Strong software-engineering fundamentals and prior experience as a senior/staff engineer, technical lead, or equivalent hands-on technical leader
• Successfully partnered with Product and other engineering teams to create a stable roadmap and make difficult prioritization decisions
• Experience leading teams through multiple concurrent priorities and diverse integration points
• Ability to lead or facilitate system design from problem definition through implementation and delivery
• Experience with Rust or another systems programming language, compilers, query planning, language servers, IDE tooling, or developer platforms
• Experience building or operating data transformation, orchestration, warehouse, or execution systems
• Contributions to open-source projects or experience working with open standards and open technical communities
• Familiarity with ecosystems such as Apache Arrow, Apache Iceberg, DuckDB, ADBC, or related data and execution technologies
• Experience with SQL semantics, query optimization, transpilation across dialects, data lineage, governance, or developer-facing language features
• Experience working in a remote-first or distributed organization with strong written communication practices
• Startup or scale-up experience and comfort wearing multiple hats while the organization evolves