Engineering Manager
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Overview
Job Description
Location: Santa Clara, CA (5 days/week in office)Comp: ~$250K–$300K base + equity
Who We Are
Building the Backbone of Distributed Applications.
At Orkes, we are reimagining how developers build reliable, scalable, event-driven applications without wrangling complex infrastructure.
Born from Netflix's battle-tested open-source project, OSS Conductor, our platform is now powering billions of mission critical workflows across fintech, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare, and more.
Our platform powers billions of mission critical workflows across industries like fintech, e-commerce, logistics, and healthcare helping companies run the core operations of their business with confidence. These are the workflows behind every transaction, every delivery, every patient check-in, quietly orchestrating our digital world.
We’re solving some of the hardest infrastructure problems: how do you make distributed systems reliable, observable, and scalable – without every team having to reinvent the wheel? We absorb the complexity of distributed systems, letting teams build with confidence.
We’re hiring a strong engineering leader to own the Cloud & Platform engineering function at Orkes.
This is a high-impact, highly operational role; you’ll lead engineers while staying deeply hands-on in architecture, systems, and production challenges. The primary goal is to drive velocity of engineers on the team.
We are open to:
- A hands-on Tech Lead ready to step into management
- OR a Manager who still codes and operates at a high technical level
What You’ll Own
Cloud & Platform Engineering
- Lead systems responsible for cloud infrastructure, deployments, and platform capabilities
- Support customer environments and production systems at scale
- Drive improvements in reliability, performance, and scalability
Team Leadership (Player-Coach)
- Lead and mentor engineers while contributing technically
- Review architecture, code, and system design
- Potential to grow and manage a larger team over time
Execution in a Startup Environment
- Handle frequent context switching across priorities
- Support high-profile customers and urgent production needs
- Drive velocity while maintaining engineering quality
What We’re Looking For
- Strong background in distributed systems / cloud infrastructure
- Proven experience as a hands-on engineer (recently)
- Experience leading engineers (formal or informal)
- Ability to operate in high-context-switch, fast-moving environments
- Startup experience or large-company experience with understanding of scale
What Won’t Work
- Managers who have been out of hands-on engineering for too long
- Pure people managers without deep technical credibility
- Engineers who struggle with fast pace or shifting priorities
Ideal Profile
- Former senior/staff engineer stepping into leadership
- OR current EM who still codes and leads technically
- Someone who has seen both startup and structured scale
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Submit 10x as many applications with less effort than one manual application.
