[Hiring] Engineering Manager @Mode Mobile

Role Description

Mode Mobile is looking for a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead the engineering team taking ownership of a VPN product following its acquisition, and to become a technical leader for future acquired products. This role sits at the intersection of engineering leadership, product ownership, and technical acquisition integration. You will take unfamiliar, live products from acquisition through transition, stabilization, integration, and ongoing growth.

We are a user-facing product-led team, and we are looking for someone who is passionate about turning acquired products into thriving, well-run businesses. This is a player-coach role. Initially, you will be hands-on with development and operations alongside your engineers:

• Reviewing and writing code
• Closing knowledge gaps left by the previous team
• Making architectural and prioritization calls that come with inheriting a live product

As the team grows and the transition stabilizes, your focus will shift toward people leadership, delivery management, and building a repeatable playbook for onboarding future acquisitions.

You’ll work closely with the VP of Engineering, Product Managers, other Engineering Managers, Corporate development, Marketing, Operations, and several stakeholders to define and execute according to our strategic roadmap to accelerate our future growth.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years managing engineers as a people manager or hands-on tech lead/manager in an agile environment delivering consumer products to end-users.
• Strong hands-on technical background, with deep expertise in at least one of our core areas and enough breadth to work effectively across the stack.
• Experience in two or more of the following is a strong plus:
  • Native mobile: Android (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose) and/or iOS (Swift, UIKit/SwiftUI), including app store release management
  • Backend services in Go (preferred), Python, or Node.js, with PostgreSQL and AWS (Lambda, S3, RDS)
  • Infrastructure and DevOps: Terraform, Ansible, Docker, multi-cloud/multi-provider hosting, Datadog or similar observability
  • Networking and VPN fundamentals: WireGuard, Shadowsocks or similar, DNS, TLS, and how mobile VPN clients and servers fit together
• Experience leading or being a key contributor in a technical acquisition, migration, or takeover of a live product: due diligence, transition planning, knowledge transfer, and integration into a parent organization.
• A track record of raising engineering quality on an inherited system: introducing automated testing, CI/CD, code review, documentation, and security hardening without stopping feature delivery.
• Agentic AI proficiency: Strong practical experience using AI coding agents and other AI tools for software development, investigation, testing, and documentation.
• You’re a candid and empathetic communicator that is excited to join a startup that enjoys leveling up a company.
• You have exceptional organizational and analytical skills leading to confident independent delivery, but know when and how to include others.
• You have experience building and operating large-scale systems and have led technical direction for a team.
• Passionate about Technology and keeping up to date with latest advancements, techniques and best practices.

Requirements

• Security- and compliance-minded: secrets management, encryption, key handling, user privacy, and regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2.
• Alignment with our Core Values:
  • Accountable: You take ownership of your responsibilities.
  • Action-driven: Identify what is most important and drive the greatest impact.
  • Caring: You genuinely care about yourself and others.
  • Curious: You focus on the ‘why’ and explore new ideas.
  • Thorough: Your work is thoughtful, impactful, timely, accurate, and complete.

Benefits

• We are a 100% remote-first, global company.
• A competitive compensation package.
• Generous perks and benefits to team members.
• Participation in the Company's equity plan (for full-time team members).
• Individual bonuses in accordance with our Company Bonus Program.
• Work with energetic, passionate, and results-driven people.
• Celebrate team members' personal and work milestones.
• Remote social activities, including virtual coffee buddies.
• Weekly Wednesday Get Stuff Done Days (No Meetings).
• Open PTO, generous Company Holidays, and Wellness Days (for full-time team members).