Senior Software Engineering Manager

Doist; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 185,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Life insurance

Retirement plans

Wellbeing services

Generous time off

Recognition program

Job summary

Vectra seeks a Senior Software Engineering Manager to lead Platform engineering, owning foundational capabilities across appliance software, cloud infrastructure, deployment tooling, and operational tooling. You will guide teams that deliver reliable, secure, and scalable systems while shaping engineering culture and practices.

You will partner with Product, Security, SRE, and other engineering leaders to set priorities, mentor engineers, and scale the platform with strong architectural

Qualifications

• 5+ years of engineering management or technical leadership experience, including ownership of production software, infrastructure, or platform systems.
• Experience leading teams that deliver reliable, secure, and scalable software.
• Strong technical judgment with the ability to discuss architecture, design, code quality, operations, and delivery tradeoffs.
• Experience with modern software engineering practices including code review, source control, CI/CD, automated testing, release management, and operational readiness.
• Strong Linux/Unix proficiency.
• Experience managing Agile delivery practices such as sprint planning, retrospectives, roadmap planning, and project visibility.
• Ability to lead cross-team initiatives with complex dependencies and ambiguous ownership boundaries.
• Strong communication, organizational, decision-making, and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor, motivate, and grow engineers and technical leads.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow one or more engineering teams responsible for foundational platform capabilities.
• Provide direct management, coaching, career development, and performance feedback for engineers and technical leads.
• Drive predictable delivery through clear planning, ownership, estimation, Jira hygiene, retrospectives, and consistent follow-through.
• Partner with Product Management and engineering leadership to define priorities, clarify requirements, and make thoughtful tradeoffs.
• Participate in architecture discussions and guide technical direction across platform systems.
• Own operational excellence for team-owned services, including reliability, security, incident response, observability, and root-cause follow-up.
• Improve platform services consumed by internal engineering teams and customer-facing products.
• Identify opportunities to improve engineering efficiency through AI-assisted development, automation, and better internal tooling.
• Encourage responsible use of AI tools for code understanding, test generation, documentation, operational analysis, and repetitive workflow automation.
• Partner with engineering leaders to evaluate where AI can reduce toil, improve delivery predictability, and help teams move faster without compromising quality, security, or maintainability.
• Ensure production deployments are fast, reliable, secure, and well-supported by automation.
• Help define and mature service ownership, operational scorecards, and platform standards across teams.
• Partner with recruiting to hire, onboard, and retain strong engineering talent.
• Communicate clearly with senior leaders about progress, risk, delivery health, and investment needs.

Skills

Engineering management

Platform systems

Linux/Unix

Agile delivery

Cross-team leadership

Mentoring engineers

Architecture discussions

Tools

AWS

Azure

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

Packer

Job description

Vectra® is the leader in AI-driven threat detection and response for hybrid and multi-cloud enterprises. The Vectra AI Platform delivers integrated signal across public cloud, SaaS, identity, and data center networks in a single platform. Powered by patented Attack Signal Intelligence, it empowers security teams to rapidly prioritize, investigate and respond to the most advanced cyber-attacks. With 35 patents in AI-driven threat detection and the most vendor references in MITRE D3FEND, organizations worldwide rely on the Vectra AI to move at the speed and scale of hybrid attackers. For more information, visit www.vectra.ai.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineering Manager to lead key areas of Vectra’s Platform engineering organization. The Platform team builds and operates foundational software, infrastructure, and tooling used by our products, customers, support teams, and engineering teams. This role is responsible for leading high-performing engineering teams that own critical platform capabilities across appliance software, cloud infrastructure, deployment systems, operational tooling, service reliability, and developer experience. You will partner closely with Product, Security, Support, SRE, Cloud, Detection, and other engineering leaders to deliver reliable, secure, and scalable systems. This is a senior management role for someone who can combine strong technical judgment, operational discipline, people leadership, and cross-functional execution.

What You’ll Do

Lead and grow one or more engineering teams responsible for foundational platform capabilities. Provide direct management, coaching, career development, and performance feedback for engineers and technical leads. Drive predictable delivery through clear planning, ownership, estimation, Jira hygiene, retrospectives, and consistent follow-through. Partner with Product Management and engineering leadership to define priorities, clarify requirements, and make thoughtful tradeoffs. Participate in architecture discussions and guide technical direction across platform systems. Own operational excellence for team-owned services, including reliability, security, incident response, observability, and root-cause follow-up. Improve platform services consumed by internal engineering teams and customer-facing products. Identify opportunities to improve engineering efficiency through AI-assisted development, automation, and better internal tooling. Encourage responsible use of AI tools for code understanding, test generation, documentation, operational analysis, and repetitive workflow automation. Partner with engineering leaders to evaluate where AI can reduce toil, improve delivery predictability, and help teams move faster without compromising quality, security, or maintainability. Ensure production deployments are fast, reliable, secure, and well-supported by automation. Help define and mature service ownership, operational scorecards, and platform standards across teams. Partner with recruiting to hire, onboard, and retain strong engineering talent. Communicate clearly with senior leaders about progress, risk, delivery health, and investment needs.

Platform Scope

Depending on organizational priorities, this role may lead or influence work across: Appliance operating system ownership, upgrades, hardening, packaging, provisioning, and migrations. Hardware and virtual appliance platform enablement. Cloud infrastructure across AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, networking, databases, reliability, operations, and alerting. Device-to-cloud connectivity and customer lifecycle systems. CI/CD, build systems, release automation, developer tooling, and engineering workflow automation. Observability, telemetry pipelines, service health dashboards, incident trends, and operational reporting. Containerization standards, runtime operations, and secure deployment patterns.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of engineering management or technical leadership experience, including ownership of production software, infrastructure, or platform systems.
• Experience leading teams that deliver reliable, secure, and scalable software.
• Strong technical judgment with the ability to discuss architecture, design, code quality, operations, and delivery tradeoffs.
• Experience with modern software engineering practices including code review, source control, CI/CD, automated testing, release management, and operational readiness.
• Strong Linux/Unix proficiency.
• Experience managing Agile delivery practices such as sprint planning, retrospectives, roadmap planning, and project visibility.
• Ability to lead cross-team initiatives with complex dependencies and ambiguous ownership boundaries.
• Strong communication, organizational, decision-making, and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor, motivate, and grow engineers and technical leads.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Packer, or similar platform tooling.
• Experience with Linux internals, Debian packaging, AppArmor, cgroups, networking, iptables/nftables, or OS-level security.
• Experience with Python, Go, C++, or systems/backend development.
• Experience operating production environments and improving reliability, availability, security, and deployment safety.
• Experience applying AI-assisted tooling, automation, or developer productivity improvements to engineering workflows.
• Interest in using AI to improve software delivery, operational insight, documentation quality, incident analysis, or supportability.
• Experience with telemetry systems including metrics, logs, traces, dashboards, and alerting.
• Experience with appliance software, virtual appliances, customer‑deployed infrastructure, or hybrid cloud products.
• Knowledge of networking, cybersecurity, threat detection, or security operations.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means the Platform team is a trusted partner across engineering: services have clear ownership, teams ship safely and predictably, operational issues are visible and acted on, engineers are growing, and platform investments make the broader product organization faster, safer, and more reliable.

Our competitive total rewards package includes cash compensation within the range provided below. Actual pay for this position may vary based on the hired candidate’s location, experience and relevant incumbent pay position.

Vectra Total Rewards $185,000 — $275,000 USD

Vectra provides a comprehensive total rewards package that supports the financial, physical, mental and overall health of our employees and their families. Compensation includes competitive base pay, incentive pla n eligibility, and participation in the employee equity plan (stock options).

• health care insurance
• income protection / life insurance
• access to retirement savings plans
• behavioral & emotional wellness services
• generous time away from work
• and a comprehensive employee recognition program.

Vectra is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.