Hybrid Engineering Manager – Product

at Kaizen Labs

• Job title: Engineering Manager – Product
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Mid level, Senior
• Salary: $180,000 - $250,000 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: JavaScript, Next.js, Node.js, Postgres, React, TypeScript
• Location requirements: Hybrid, New York City, United States

About the role

• Engineering Manager leading product engineering teams at Kaizen, developing software for government agencies. Driving technical roadmap and managing engineering talent while delivering high-quality features.

Responsibilities

• Own and drive the technical roadmap for your team's area of the platform and defining priorities, building, and shipping.
• Write production code across the stack (React/Next.js, Node.js/TypeScript, Postgres) while ensuring your team is shipping high-quality, maintainable software.
• Manage, mentor, and grow a small engineering team - setting clear expectations, giving regular feedback, and creating an environment where people do their best work.
• Set the standard for AI-augmented engineering practices on your team, evaluating new tools, sharing what works, and building a culture where using AI well is a craft, not a shortcut.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Customer Ops to scope work, make tradeoffs, and ensure what you build actually solves real customer problems.
• Contribute to high-level architectural decisions as we scale from thousands to millions of transactions and users.
• Translate customer needs and feedback into technical direction — working directly with customers when needed to understand pain points and validate solutions.
• Build systems and practices that scale - CI/CD, testing, code review standards, documentation, on-call processes.
• Balance short-term customer needs with long-term platform health, knowing when to move fast and when to invest in foundations.
• Use AI tools as a daily force multiplier - from code generation and review to debugging, testing, and documentation. We expect engineering leaders to be fluent with LLMs and to push the team toward smarter, faster workflows.

Requirements

• 6+ years of professional software development experience, with at least 1 - 2 years in a technical leadership or management role (formal or informal).
• Strong full-stack engineering skills - React/Next.js on the frontend, Node.js/TypeScript/Postgres on the backend.
• A track record of shipping customer-facing features that people actually use and love.
• Experience managing or mentoring engineers - you've helped people grow, navigated difficult conversations, and built trust on a team.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity - you can take a vague problem, break it down, and drive it to resolution without waiting for someone to hand you a spec.
• A customer-obsessed mindset - you think about the end user, not just the code.
• Strong written and verbal communication - you can explain technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders and write clearly in async environments.
• A builder's mentality - you're excited about improving processes, tooling, and team practices as the company scales.
• Comfort using AI coding tools (e.g., Copilot, Cursor, Claude) in your daily workflow - you've developed a real point of view on where they help and where they don't.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical through Oxford/United - Gold and Platinum PPO plans, with 85% of premiums covered on the Platinum plan and a $0 employee premium option.
• Dental through Guardian PPO and vision through Beam, with 99% of employee premiums covered and 50% for dependents.
• $100,000 in fully paid life insurance. FSA and Dependent Care FSA. 401(k) access through Guideline.
• 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for birthing parents. 10 weeks fully paid for non-birthing parents.
• Unlimited PTO & closed for all federal holidays.
• Company-wide winter break the week of Christmas.
• One-time home office or desk setup stipend up to $750.
• $50/month commuter benefit.
• $100/month for wellness or productivity - your call on how you use it!
• $500/year for professional development.
• $250/year for recreation.
• Company-provided laptop.
• Expensed lunch while in the office.