Software Engineering Manager

ABOUT US:

At Sift, we’re accelerating the development of next-generation machines with the world’s first end-to-end telemetry stack — and we’re expanding our team.

Sift’s founders started this company in order to enable private and government entities to make big, technological strides. Our focus is centered on creating a better world for tomorrow, and we’re making an impact with our highly specialized expertise.

By joining us, you’ll help shape future-focused data infrastructure that will power spacecraft, satellite constellations, renewable energy, autonomous transportation, and more.

Sift is currently looking for team members who are passionate about solving complex engineering problems and building a fast-growing startup.

OUR TEAM:

The Sift team includes top senior engineers and operators, with past experience at SpaceX, Google, Palantir, and Amazon. We believe that the best software is written by those close to the source of the problem. One of our founders, Karthik Gollapudi, was a Dragon flight software lead responsible for two Dragon missions to the ISS. His team used SpaceX’s end-to-end data platform before, during, and after every Dragon mission. Our other co-founder, Austin Spiegel, was a lead on Starlink’s tools team, responsible for the platform that collected data from over 2,000 Starlink satellites for exploration and data review.

OUR CUSTOMERS:

Backed by the best investors in the sector, Sift is positioned at the forefront of machine innovation, with customers who are pushing the boundaries of exploration on earth and in space. We’re providing scalable infrastructure and no-code visualization tools to companies across aerospace, aviation, defense, energy, and transportation sectors.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

Sift is hiring a hands-on engineering manager to lead and scale our engineering team. In this role, you’ll be instrumental in driving the technical execution of our product roadmap while ensuring our engineering practices are solid and scalable. You’ll work closely with our engineers, product team, and customers to solve complex technical challenges and deliver innovative solutions to customers building satellite constellations, renewable energy, and autonomous transportation. You will also have the unique opportunity to build and refine our engineering processes from the ground up. We’re looking for an Engineering Manager who thrives in dynamic, high-growth environments and is passionate about building exceptional teams and products. This is a rare opportunity to shape an early-stage company’s success by driving engineering excellence. You will report to our Co-Founder and CTO and play a critical role in aligning the team’s efforts with Sift’s long-term technical vision.

In This Role, You'll:

• Lead a team of engineers, accelerate their growth by providing thoughtful feedback and technical mentorship, and effectively manage their performance.
• Collaborate with go-to-market, product, and engineering to build and champion a long-term technical roadmap that reduces the operational burden, ensures scalability, and mitigates risk.
• Work closely with customers, including hardware engineers, to understand their problems and find efficient solutions.
• Drive execution, ensuring high-quality projects are delivered on time and aligned with company goals.
• Establish and refine engineering processes, including code reviews, sprint planning, and post-mortems, that increase velocity, maintain product quality, and ensure high technical standards.
• Track and report key engineering metrics (e.g., error rates, shipping velocity) to ensure continuous improvement and efficient execution.
• Help scale the engineering team.
• Contribute to the codebase, working on high-impact features and helping solve critical technical challenges.

The Skillset You'll Bring:

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, preferably B2B SaaS, with at least 2 years of experience leading engineering efforts from analyzing requirements to scoping, shipping, and operating in production.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, data science, engineering, math, physics, or STEM discipline.
• Strong experience designing and building large-scale, distributed systems or web applications using Go, Python, or an equivalent language.
• Deep systems background and value technical excellence. You deliver well-engineered and durable solutions, leading technical discussions, design, and code reviews.
• A demonstrated track record of successful mentorship and accelerating reports growth, being an effective multiplier for the team.
• Self-starter, able to navigate ambiguity and changing priorities in a start-up environment.
• Proven ability to balance hands-on development with team management.
• Team player with excellent communication skills and a collaborative work ethic.

Bonus Points:

• Experience working with in-stream data processing and analytics using Apache Kafka, Flink, Beam, or similar
• Experience with relational and non-relational databases, e.g. PostgreSQL, Druid, Pinot, Timescale, or similar
• Experience with data exploration tools like Grafana, Jupyter Notebooks, Metabase, PowerBI, or similar
• Strong understanding of DevOps principles; version control, testing, continuous integration, build, deployment and monitoring

Engineering At Sift:

• You’ll have the opportunity to heavily influence our stack because we’re still in the early stages of building the product. Relevant technologies include:
• Web frontend & backend: Go, React, TypeScript, WebAssembly, D3.js, WebGL, and Tailwind
• Data: Parquet, Flink, Kafka, Redpanda, Beam, DuckDB, Timescale, QuestDB, InfluxDB, and Druid
• Infrastructure: GitHub Actions, AWS, Azure, GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform

LOCATION:

Sift headquarters is located in Los Angeles (El Segundo), and we work in a hybrid environment. We work closely with hardware companies building everything from autonomous vehicles to spacecraft, and many of them are based in L.A. As a customer-centric company, it's essential to be nearby for site visits and collaboration.

BENEFITS:

New hire stock equity Hybrid workplace Free lunch, snacks, & coffee Top-tier health insurance: Medical, Vision, Dental