Engineering Manager
Chicago, IL - USA
Job Summary
Engineering Manager (Hands-On Full Stack Product)
Location: Remote (United States)
About Our Client
Our client is replacing outdated manual local government workflows with modern software used by hundreds of government agencies across the U.S. Their AI-powered platform leverages Natural Language Processing (NLP) to reduce manual data entryeliminating delays backlogs and errors. The work directly impacts how communities fund schools infrastructure and public services.
The Role
Our client is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead teams responsible for the core products systems and infrastructure that power the platform. This is a hands-on leadership role that blends people management architecture and end-to-end delivery.
Youll lead engineers building everything from user-facing features and modern frontend systems to scalable backend services and critical platform integrations. Youll be a force multipliersetting direction contributing to design and code and building a scalable foundation while investing in the growth of each engineer.
What Makes This Team Different
This is a lean environmentno separate QA team dedicated designers or product managers. Engineers own the full lifecycle: scoping building shipping and supporting production. If you thrive in ambiguity and dislike hand-offs youll fit right in.
What Youll Work On
Examples of problems the team tackles:
- Designing and implementing end-to-end features from UI to scalable backend services
- Improving performance and responsiveness across the full stack
- Collaborating directly with customers to translate needs into technical solutions
- Building reliable data pipelines and integrations that support product features
- Designing systems that support AI-driven automation features
- Scaling the engineering organization while maintaining high talent density
Tech Stack
- Backend: Java PostgreSQL
- Frontend: React TypeScript
- Infrastructure: AWS Docker Terraform
- Dev Tools: GitHub Linear Claude Code Cursor CI/CD automated testing
You dont need to be an expert in every tool on day oneour client values strong fundamentals and a learning mindset.
What Youll Do
Team Leadership & Mentorship
- Lead and manage a team of software engineers
- Provide technical guidance and mentorshipraising the bar in design coding and problem-solving
- Own team health: goal setting performance reviews and career development
Strategic Execution & Delivery
- Partner cross-functionally to define and execute roadmaps tied to measurable customer and business outcomes
- Stay hands-on (up to 20% coding time) depending on team needs
- Improve engineering processes developer experience and delivery pipelines
- Collaborate with leadership Customer Success and Operations to align technical initiatives with company strategy
Architectural Guidance & Standards
- Guide architectural decisions focused on scalability performance and maintainability
- Champion high standards for code quality testing documentation and engineering excellence
- Contribute to designs and review or write code on complex high-impact projects
What Our Client Is Looking For
- 4 years of hands-on software engineering experience across backend (Java/Python etc.) and frontend (React etc.)
- 2 years of engineering leadership experience (people management and/or leading multi-quarter initiatives)
- Proven ability to ship high-quality user-facing features across the full stack
- Experience with cloud platforms CI/CD observability/monitoring and reliability/SRE practices
- Ability to balance people leadership with meaningful technical contribution
- Strong communication skillsable to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders
- High ownership bias for action and a lead by example mindset
Benefits
- Competitive compensation stock equity plan
- Medical dental vision and life insurance
- Company-sponsored 401(k) program
- Flexible work environment that supports working from home
- Flexible PTO
- Parental leave
- Home office stipen
Required Experience:
Manager
About Company
Nxt Level is a recruiting agency specializing in high-level technical recruiting in engineering, video games, and executive search.