Sr Manager, Staff Engineering - (Software Development / Microservices) - Hybrid

Relha LLC; Bethesda (MD); On-site; USD 140,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

GEICO is seeking a Senior Manager of Staff Engineering to lead a high-performing team focused on AI-powered solutions, microservices, and scalable cloud platforms. You will drive architecture and implementation while mentoring engineers to optimize performance, reliability and delivery velocity.

The role balances hands-on development (10–20%) with strategic leadership, guiding cross-functional teams to deliver enterprise-scale software across cloud-native environments.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience leading design, implementation, and adoption of AI technologies.
• Hands-on expertise in AI/ML, generative AI, and enterprise-scale AI solutions.
• Fluency in Java, Python or Go; experience with open-source software is a plus.
• Hands-on development 10–20% of the time; strong system design capabilities.
• Passionate about testing across unit, integration and performance.
• Strong foundation in algorithms and data structures.
• Experience with RESTful and GRPC services, microservices, messaging, and storage strategies.
• Knowledge of cloud computing (SaaS/PaaS/IaaS) and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Experience with application monitoring tools and performance assessments.
• Ability to construct and interpret metrics for decision-making and roadmap planning.
• Site reliability engineering principles and engineering excellence.
• Exceptional leadership and communication skills; strategic thinking to drive positive change.
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology or related field, or equivalent experience

Responsibilities

• Define strategy and execute a technical roadmap to increase delivery velocity.
• Lead architecture, design, and implementation of AI-powered solutions end-to-end.
• Mentor and lead a high-performing engineering team; manage performance.
• Collaborate with product teams to address performance and resiliency issues.
• Drive performance, resiliency, and reliability improvements.
• Collaborate with product teams to address pain points and plan improvements.
• Manage expectations and communicate progress to leadership.
• Ensure a hands-on contribution to software development when needed.

Skills

AI/ML leadership

Java / Python / Go

System design

Cloud platforms

Leadership

Performance tuning

REST/GRPC

Cloud platforms

Observability

Leadership

Communication

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology or related field

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Kubernetes

Monitoring tools

Job description

Sr Manager, Staff Engineering - (Software Development / Microservices) - Hybrid

At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities.

Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide.

Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported, and proud to work here. That's why we offer the GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers.

Position Summary

GEICO is seeking an experienced Senior Staff Engineering Manager with a passion for building high performance, low-latency platforms, and applications. You will build and manage a team of engineers with a deep focus on delivering enterprise-wide product to operate in a highly performant and efficient way. You will help drive our insurance business transformation as we redefine experiences for our customers.

Position Description

This is a hybrid leadership role requiring a hands-on technical leader who can drive architecture, design, and implementation of AI-powered solutions end-to-end, while also building, mentoring, and leading a high-performing team of engineers.

A Senior Manager will lead defining the strategy and execution of a technical roadmap that will increase the velocity of delivering products and unlock new engineering capabilities in our core insurance platform. The ideal candidate has deep technical expertise to drive system design, architecture and implementation, improve application performance, capacity benchmarking, improve availability and reliability, design and evolve cloud infrastructure and services.

Position Responsibilities

As a Senior Manager, you will:

Work with your Director to address project dependencies, negotiate and estimate incremental delivery dates for milestones with the stakeholder community, and deliver projects on time

Identify and raise appropriate project risks, in addition to presenting detailed and implementable solutions or alternatives

Report on your team’s progress for project and other key metrics, in addition to presenting detailed and implementable ideas for areas to further improve or influence product or project delivery

Understand how requirements and design choices may impact systems across multiple areas

Initiate and support performance evaluation of team members

Cultivate a culture that motivates all levels of performers to higher levels of achievement

Build and maintain relationships with your team members to support an environment of trust

Collaborate with the product teams to understand their pain points around performance, resiliency and formulate strategies to address recurring issues in a sustainable way

Cultivate a culture of motivation and achievement, building and maintaining trustful relationships with team members

Address technical or analytical skill gaps, challenging team members to share knowledge and learn new technologies

Contribute as a hands-on technical leader to the architecture, system design and implementation of core services including API and microservice development, storage/persistence implementations, messaging and a variety of other technical areas.

Constantly up to date with current software engineering best practices

Identify where technical or analytical skill gaps put future team deliverables at risk and craft a plan to remediate, consistently challenge team members to share knowledge and learn new technologies

Proficiently execute difficult conversations on development and performance

Craft and deliver persuasive arguments to drive projects for process improvement, cost leadership, and customer experience enhancement

Manage up to leadership and provide feedback when necessary

Mindset of efficiency and utilization improvements

Contribute significantly to the team planning process, including surfacing team’s proposals

Ability to construct roadmaps, manage and translate projects into deliverables, adjust priorities, and be able to understand and adjust the team capacity as needed

Qualifications

Required: Extensive experience leading the design, implementation, and adoption of AI technologies, supporting by hands-on expertise and a deep understanding of AI/ML, generative AI, and enterprise-scale AI solutions.

Fluency with at least one additional modern language such as Java, Python or GO and experience with open-source software is a big plus

Ability to be hands-on developing software at least 10-20% of the time

Strong knowledge of system design, architecture and full lifecycle of design, implementation and productionizing of core Services and APIs.

Passionate for all things testing (unit, integration, functional, performance, etc.)

Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and core computer science concepts

Implemented RESTful and GRPC services, event driven architecture, micro-services, messaging technology and optimal storage/persistence approaches.

Knowledge of cloud computing technologies (SaaS/PaaS/IaaS, etc.)

Knowledge of Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure etc.)

Experience with application monitoring tools and performance assessments

Understanding of SQL, and NoSQL databases, including stateful services management and storage

Ability to construct, interpret, and apply metrics for decision-making, prioritization, and progress visibility

Strong site reliability engineering principles

Strong passion for technology and engineering excellence

Exceptional leadership and communication skills

Strategic thinking and the ability to drive projects for positive change

Experience

6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including software development lifecycle best practices

5+ years of development in a large-scale, mission-critical environment

5+ years of hands-on work experience supervising personnel in a technical environment

2+ years of experience with automated testing including Unit, Integration, and End-to-End functional testing

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology or related field, or equivalent experience

#LI-DP1

$140,000.00 - $300,000.00

The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/ annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate’s work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations.

GEICO will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The GEICO Pledge:

Great Company: Protecting customers through life’s twists and turns with innovation and integrity.

Great Careers: Personalized development programs, mentorship, and certification assistance.

Great Culture: Inclusive and collaborative culture rooted in shared success.

Great Rewards: Competitive pay, benefits, and flexibility to support your well-being and future.

The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies provides for a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law. GEICO hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.

GEICO reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to receive equal employment opportunity and/or perform the essential functions of the job, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship to the Company. This applies to all applicants and associates. GEICO also provides a work environment in which each associate is able to be productive and work to the best of their ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment. We expect and require the cooperation of all associates in maintaining an atmosphere free from discrimination and harassment with mutual respect by and for all associates and applicants.