Engineering Manager, Canvas

About Zapier

Were humans who simply think computers should do more work.

At Zapier were not just making softwarewere building a platform to help millions of businesses globally scale with automation and AI. Our mission is to make automation work for everyone by delivering products that delight our customers. Youll collaborate with brilliant people use the latest tools and leverage the flexibility of remote work. Your work will directly fuel our customers success and as they grow so will you.

AI at Zapier

We build and use automation every day to make work more efficient creative and human. So if youre using AI tools while applying here thats great! We just ask that you use them responsibly and transparently.

Check out our guidance on How to Collaborate with AI During Zapiers Hiring Process including how to use AI tools like ChatGPT Claude Gemini or others during our hiring process and when not to.

Hi there!

Zapier has made automation work for everyone and now that includes some of the worlds biggest companies! Our Enterprise customers value automation and need tools that offer scale control visibility and trust.

Were looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Canvas team within Zapiers Enterprise Zone. This team owns critical platform infrastructure that enables visibility dependency mapping and collaborative management of automation assets at enterprise scale. Youll lead a team building the foundational layers that power enterprise observability governance and self-healing capabilities across our product. Our mission includes:

• Building scalable platform infrastructure that enables automation-as-code and unlocks enterprise-grade visibility and management capabilities

• Creating tools for dependency mapping observability and collaborative workspace management

• Leveraging AI to surface high-quality signal and oversight for enterprise accounts enabling proactive management and self-healing capabilities

• Enabling enterprise customers to manage complex automation ecosystems with confidence and control

About You

• You have deep customer empathy and thrive in solving real enterprise problems. You understand that enterprise customers want reliable proven solutions that work seamlessly with their existing tools. You know when to innovate and when to adopt established patterns that enterprise buyers expect and trust. You bring energy and a problem-solving mindset eager to dig into customer problems and figure them out while respecting enterprise constraints.

• You are an effective team builder and a skilled engineering leader. This isnt your first rodeo. You have at least two years of experience managing cross-functional teams of engineers comprising frontend full stack and backend disciplines. You know how to hire train and develop engineers from all backgrounds. You understand the benefits of building a diverse and inclusive engineering team.

• Champion of Platform Thinking and Scalability. Youve led teams building foundational platforms that unlock capabilities across an organization not just individual features. You understand the difference between building a tool and building a platform. You know how to balance long-term platform investments with delivering incremental value and you can articulate the business case for both to stakeholders.

• Youre experienced with distributed systems and backend infrastructure. While you appreciate great UX youre excited about the backend and infrastructure work that makes enterprise-scale products possible. Youve built or managed teams building APIs configuration layers or infrastructure that multiple teams depend on. You understand what it takes to build systems that are reliable performant and scalable.

• Youre a collaborator and advocate for your team. You leverage your strong communication skills to align on a shared vision and strategy with your Product and Design partners stakeholders and peer teams. You know how to play the gamesmiling and accepting when politics get weird but also knowing when and how to push back constructively. You actively seek input from stakeholders and integrate their feedback into decision-making processes. Your transparent communication style fosters trust and alignment across teams and your ability to build relationships leads to successful project outcomes and a cohesive team dynamic.

• Youve shipped production code and you know what great code looks like. You contribute to design discussions review code and establish quality standards for your team. You utilize key metrics to monitor your teams health performance and quality output. A solid grasp of engineering fundamentals is essential along with practical understanding of software development practices and trade-offs between technical debt and product needs.

• Youre comfortable with enterprise requirements and constraints. Youve worked in environments where permissions models compliance security and governance arent nice-to-havestheyre requirements. You understand that enterprise work moves differently than startup product work and you know how to help your team navigate those realities while maintaining momentum.

• Youre opinionated and willing to push back constructively. You dont just accept requirements at face valueyou ask why what and when. You probe for the actual requirements and what done looks like. You can disagree make your case reach a compromise and then commit fully to the decision.

• You have experience with or strong curiosity about AI integration. Experience integrating AI capabilities into enterprise productsparticularly in grounded practical ways that respect enterprise constraintswould set you apart. You understand AI as a tool that adds value not as magic and you can help teams integrate it thoughtfully where it genuinely improves the customer experience.
  

Things Youll Do

• Work closely with your product and design peers to deliver customer and company value translating between technical capabilities and business outcomes.

• Develop effective ways to communicate monitor and lead your team of 6 high-functioning self-organizing and motivated cross-functional Engineers through weekly one-on-ones and team meetings.

• Keep the leadership team and your peer teams in Enterprise informed on your teams progress and challenges in ways that are easy and enjoyable to receive like one-on-ones update posts and regular team hangouts.

• Build rapport with each member of the Engineering Team and support them through coaching and mentorship to help level up their skills and performance management when necessary.

• Participate in code reviews learning and spreading technical knowledge throughout Zapiermoving knowledge to documentation where appropriate.

• Maintain a focus on our customers by using customer feedback to guide your team through tradeoffs. Help your team understand the difference between building speculative features and building proven enterprise capabilities that customers explicitly need.

• Work directly with cross-functional stakeholders and peer teams across the Enterprise Zone to ensure platform capabilities are serving their needs and enabling their success.

• Recruit onboard and train new engineers at Zapier as well as supporting the continuous improvement of hiring practices in Engineering.

• Lead platform strategy and stakeholder management. Help articulate the value of long-term platform investments to executives and stakeholders who may be skeptical of projects that dont ship visible features immediately. Build trust through iterative milestones customer-backed use cases and clear communication about whats being built and why.

• Organize your team to serve multiple constituencies. The Canvas team builds infrastructure that both enterprise customers interact with directly and that internal teams across Zapier depend on. Youll balance these needs while keeping the team focused on the highest-leverage work.

Required Experience:

Manager