Engineering Manager at Orkes

<p><strong>Location:</strong> Santa Clara, CA (5 days/week in office)<br><strong>Comp:</strong> ~$250K–$300K base + equity</p> <p><strong>Who We Are</strong></p> <p><strong>Building the Backbone of Distributed Applications.</strong></p> <p>At <strong>Orkes</strong>, we are reimagining how developers build reliable, scalable, event-driven applications without wrangling complex infrastructure.&nbsp;</p> <p>Born from Netflix's battle-tested open-source project, OSS <a href="https://github.com/conductor-oss/conductor">Conductor</a>, our platform is now powering billions of mission critical workflows across fintech, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare, and more.</p> <p>Our platform powers <a href="https://medium.com/orkes/running-a-billion-workflows-a-month-with-netflix-conductor-5fd358d9b6c1">billions of mission critical workflows</a> across industries like <strong>fintech, e-commerce, logistics, and healthcare</strong> 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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>We’re hiring a <strong>strong engineering leader</strong> to own the <strong>Cloud &amp; Platform engineering function</strong> at Orkes.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>We are open to:</p> <ul> <li>A hands-on Tech Lead ready to step into management</li> <li>OR a Manager who still codes and operates at a high technical level</li> </ul> <h3><strong>What You’ll Own</strong></h3> <h4><strong>Cloud &amp; Platform Engineering</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Lead systems responsible for cloud infrastructure, deployments, and platform capabilities</li> <li>Support customer environments and production systems at scale</li> <li>Drive improvements in reliability, performance, and scalability</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Team Leadership (Player-Coach)</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Lead and mentor engineers while contributing technically</li> <li>Review architecture, code, and system design</li> <li>Potential to grow and manage a larger team over time</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Execution in a Startup Environment</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Handle frequent context switching across priorities</li> <li>Support high-profile customers and urgent production needs</li> <li>Drive velocity while maintaining engineering quality</li> </ul> <h3><strong>What We’re Looking For</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Strong background in distributed systems / cloud infrastructure</li> <li>Proven experience as a hands-on engineer (recently)</li> <li>Experience leading engineers (formal or informal)</li> <li>Ability to operate in high-context-switch, fast-moving environments</li> <li>Startup experience or large-company experience with understanding of scale</li> </ul> <h3><strong>What Won’t Work</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Managers who have been out of hands-on engineering for too long</li> <li>Pure people managers without deep technical credibility</li> <li>Engineers who struggle with fast pace or shifting priorities</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Ideal Profile</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Former senior/staff engineer stepping into leadership</li> <li>OR current EM who still codes and leads technically</li> <li>Someone who has seen both startup and structured scale</li> </ul>