Sr Engineering Manager

Playlist; United States; On-site; USD 191,000 - 254,000; Full time

Job summary

Playlist seeks an experienced engineering leader to build and scale customer-facing products. You will coach teams, own delivery across web, mobile, and backend, and partner with Product and Design to translate customer needs into reliable releases.

You’ll shape architecture, drive AI-assisted development, and foster an inclusive culture. The base salary range in the United States is $190,500 to $254,000, with potential bonuses and incentives.

Qualifications

• Experienced engineer who has transitioned into a people leader.
• Tracks record delivering customer-facing products end to end.
• Ability to guide architecture and engineering practices across web/mobile and backend.

Responsibilities

• Leading, coaching, and growing a high-performing engineering team.
• Owning delivery across web, mobile, and backend experiences.
• Partnering with Product and Design to translate customer needs into priorities.
• Setting technical direction with senior engineers for reliable releases.
• Building foundations for business-critical product features and AI-forward workflows.
• Establishing an AI-forward engineering culture with proper testing and data privacy.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Hiring & onboarding

Delivery ownership

Architecture discussions

AI-assisted development

Tools

React Native

TypeScript/JavaScript

AWS

Claude Code

MCP integration

Job description

About the Company:

At Playlist, life's richest moments happen when people step away from screens to move, connect, explore, and play. We're building the definitive platform for intentional living, connecting people with inspiring experiences in fitness, wellness, and beyond. With popular brands like Mindbody and ClassPass, Playlist empowers businesses and individuals, making it effortless for aspirations to become actions. Join us in reshaping technology's role to foster meaningful, real-world connections.

Who we are

We're building the next generation of software for our suite of businesses. Our team is developing new products, with an AI-native business platform for our customers who manage their own clients, appointments, payments, and growth. We're bringing together the ownership and creativity of an early-stage team with the reach, resources, and shared platforms of Playlist, the company behind Mindbody and ClassPass.

This is an opportunity to help build a product from the ground up, and shape how we build the products that come next. We're exploring how AI can make running a small and medium sized business simpler, while developing engineering practices that use AI to improve both delivery speed and software quality. Our ambition is practical: build reliable tools that give business owners more time to focus on their craft and their clients.

We believe in giving engineers the autonomy to solve meaningful problems and bringing together diverse perspectives to build a better product and a better company. We care less about a perfect match to a particular toolset and more about your judgment, curiosity, and ability to help a team do its best work. You'll partner closely with Engineering leadership, Product, and Design to turn an evolving vision into a product customers can depend on.

You’ll likely spend time working on

• Leading, coaching, and growing a high-performing engineering team, with ownership of hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career development.
• Owning delivery across web, mobile, and backend experiences—from planning and prioritization through production readiness and ongoing improvement.
• Partnering with Product and Design to translate customer needs into clear priorities, scoped technical work, and reliable releases.
• Setting technical direction with your senior engineers, balancing rapid experimentation with maintainability, security, and operational reliability.
• Building the foundations of a business-critical product, including scheduling, client management, payments, notifications, and integrations.
• Establishing an AI-forward engineering culture: helping engineers use coding assistants and agentic workflows effectively, with clear expectations for testing, review, correctness, and data privacy.
• Helping shape AI-powered customer experiences that can take useful actions while preserving user control and trust.
• Creating lightweight, repeatable development practices that improve predictability without slowing the team down - and can inform how Playlist builds future products.
• Creating the conditions for autonomy and accountability, removing blockers, protecting focus, and fostering an inclusive, sustainable team culture.
• Contributing to broader engineering initiatives and collaborating with shared platform teams across Playlist.

About The Right Team Member

You are an experienced engineer who has successfully transitioned into a people leader. You enjoy building customer-facing products, developing strong engineers, and creating clarity when the path forward is not fully defined. You can move comfortably between product strategy, architecture discussions, delivery planning, and individual coaching.

You bring an early-stage builder's mindset and the judgment to know where speed matters and where getting the fundamentals right is essential. You're excited about AI's potential, but you evaluate tools by the quality and impact of their results, not the novelty of the technology. You understand that your team's success is measured by customer outcomes, dependable software, and the growth of the people you lead.

You’ll thrive in this role with experience in

• Managing and growing engineering teams, including recruiting, performance management, coaching, and career development.
• Delivering complex customer-facing products end to end, ideally including early-stage launches or significant new product development.
• Guiding architecture and engineering practices across web or mobile applications and their backend systems.
• Establishing and articulating a vision, setting goals, making tradeoffs, and translating ambiguity into focused execution.
• Partnering closely with Product and Design to validate customer needs, manage scope, and respond to changing priorities.
• Building reliable systems through effective testing, code review, observability, release practices, and incident management.
• Applying AI-assisted development tools in real engineering workflows, with an understanding of their limitations and the guardrails needed for production software.
• Communicating clearly across technical and nontechnical audiences and building trust across teams.

Experience with React Native and cross-platform mobile delivery, payments or scheduling systems, SaaS products for small businesses, or AI-powered product experiences would be especially valuable.

Technologies you'll be working with

We value adaptability and problem-solving over specific tools. Our stack and practices will continue to evolve, but you'll likely work with:

• TypeScript / JavaScript, React, and Next.js.
• React Native for cross-platform mobile experiences.
• AWS infrastructure and DynamoDB-backed services.
• Claude Code and other AI-assisted development tools, agentic workflows, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations.
• GitHub, automated testing, CI/CD, and observability tools.

You do not need to be hands-on in every part of the stack, but you should have the technical depth to guide decisions, challenge assumptions, and support your engineers.

Pay Transparency

It is Playlist's intent to pay all team members competitive wages and salaries that are motivational, fair, and equitable. The goal of Playlist's compensation program is to be transparent, attract potential employees, meet the needs of all current employees, and encourage team members to stay with our organization. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific work location.

The base salary range for this position in the United States is $190,500 to $254,000. The total compensation package for this position may also include a performance bonus, benefits, and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans.

The Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We highly value diversity at our company and encourage people of all different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or other protected characteristics.

Note: This description outlines key responsibilities but isn't intended to cover every task or duty. Additional responsibilities may be assigned as needed to support the team and business goals.