[Hiring] Engineering Manager @Spacelift

Role Description

Spacelift is hiring an Engineering Manager to build and lead the team for our new Kubernetes application-delivery product.

• Most Kubernetes teams we talk to run Argo CD and want to keep it.
• They build their own glue for everything around it: promoting releases from dev to production, tracking which version runs in which environment, gating production on approvals and tests, and passing Terraform outputs into application config.
• Each team builds that glue differently. Our product replaces the glue and leaves Argo in place.
• You will hire the team, decide with the Product Manager what to build first, and own the architecture.

The product includes:

• Release promotion across environments and clusters, with approvals, policy gates, and an audit trail.
• A view of which version runs where and what changed.
• Terraform and OpenTofu outputs from Spacelift flowing into application config.
• An agent that runs next to the customer's Argo CD, plus an API and Terraform provider.

The hard parts include:

• For Kubernetes users, releases overlap, and the system decides which ones to push, wait, or cancel.
• GitOps repositories vary from team to team: Helm values, Kustomize overlays, app-of-apps, ApplicationSets, monorepos, and repo-per-service.
• The product edits all of them and records every change.
• Argo decides when a change is live, and the product follows each commit through sync and health.
• The agent runs within customer networks, some of which are air-gapped.
• Reviewers need the rendered Kubernetes objects for a proposed change.
• Spacelift already has runs, workers, policies, and multi-tenant access control.

What you'll do

• Hire backend and frontend engineers, and grow them.
• Set the team's practices for planning, design review, code review, and on-call.
• Prototype early, test the design with customers, and change it where it fails.
• Ship a first release.
• Write down major architecture decisions with the alternatives you rejected.
• Estimate the build and produce a phased plan.
• Run design-partner pilots with the Product Manager.
• Own reliability, security, and quality.
• Coordinate shared components with the Deploy, run engine, and platform teams.

Qualifications

• Experience managing engineers, including hiring.
• Recent hands-on engineering, enough to lead architecture and review code.
• Production experience with Argo CD or Flux: how they sync, render Helm and Kustomize, and report health.
• Experience building distributed systems, developer platforms, or workflow engines.
• Working knowledge of Terraform or OpenTofu.
• Strong written and spoken English (B2 or above).
• Based in Europe.

Nice to have

• Go.
• Kubernetes controllers, operators, or agents.
• Kargo, Argo Rollouts, Harness, or another GitOps delivery tool.
• OPA/Rego or another policy-as-code tool.
• Taking a product from zero to its first customers.
• Developer tools or B2B SaaS.
• Contributions to Argo or other CNCF projects.

First six months

• The core team has been hired and is working.
• A working version runs against a real Argo CD environment, and at least one design partner uses it.
• The major architectural decisions are made and documented.
• You have delivered the engineering estimate and phased plan.

How you'll work

You report to the VP of Engineering. The Product Manager for Kubernetes is your peer and owns the customer problem, priorities, scope, and adoption. You own the team, the architecture, quality, and delivery. A product designer works with both of you.

Benefits

• Innovative Culture: Join a team shaping cloud infrastructure management’s future.
• Growth Opportunities: Be a key player in driving Spacelift’s business and AWS partnership to new heights.
• Work-Life Balance: Flexible work environment, with remote-first options and competitive compensation packages.
• Collaborative Team: Work with passionate, talented people committed to driving success for our customers and partners.
• Competitive salary and equity package: B2B contract.

Hiring Process

• 30' HR intro call.
• 30' Hiring Manager Interview.
• Take-home exercise.
• 90' Technical interview with live coding.
• 45' Final Leadership call with our Director of Engineering.

Our values

• We build for CUSTOMERS.
• We RESPECT each other.
• We take OWNERSHIP seriously.
• We succeed through COLLABORATION.
• We embrace SPARK & WONDER.

Join Us! At Spacelift, you won’t just be working on a technical product - you’ll be part of a team shaping the future of DevOps. Apply to contribute to a platform loved by its users and take your career to the next level!