[Hiring] Engineering Manager - Developer Experience @Pliant

Role Description

We're seeking an Engineering Manager - Developer Experience (m/f/d) to define and lead a brand-new platform engineering team focused on Developer Experience, the discipline where Pliant ensures every engineer is productive from day one and autonomous from day two.

This is a founding role. You will be the first hire on the team, which means you get to define what great looks like before hiring the engineers to build it alongside you. You will own the golden path that product teams actually use, CI/CD integrations engineers can modify without raising a ticket, self-service environment provisioning, and a Service Registry as the canonical source of truth for everything running on Kubernetes. Initially, you will be heavily hands-on, coding alongside your team, reviewing designs, and making architectural calls. The expectation is that hands-on involvement remains high as the team is built out, with leadership responsibilities growing in parallel as the team matures.

What You’ll Do

• Use AI-assisted coding tools every day, such as Claude Code, Cursor, or something equivalent.
• Own the golden path:
  • Build and maintain deployment templates, opinionated CI/CD patterns on top of our Kubernetes cluster APIs, production readiness checklists, and onboarding flows that get a new service to production without filing a support ticket.
• Own developer satisfaction as a metric:
  • Track golden path adoption rate, deployment lead time, and time-to-first-deploy for new services.
  • Diagnose and fix issues when engineers route around the platform.
• Standardise AI-assisted development tooling:
  • Lead the team building the AI harness that standardises the usage of assisted development tools across the company.
• Build the team from zero:
  • Own hiring, culture, and the technical bar from the very first hire.

What You’ll Bring

• 4+ years of software development experience with Python, including 2+ years in leadership/management. Go experience is a strong plus.
• Hands-on experience building CI/CD systems, internal developer portals, or golden paths.
• Deep experience with Kubernetes-based platforms, including cluster APIs, namespaces, RBAC, admission control, and deployment patterns.
• A product mindset for internal tooling.
• Experience hiring engineers, including at least one hire that taught you something.
• Security-first thinking that shows up in the design.
• Fintech or regulated-environment experience is a genuine advantage.
• Ability to read a stack trace, follow a build log, and distinguish between configuration issues and code bugs.
• Fluent in English.

The First Year

• The first few months are mostly discovery and hiring.
• By mid-year, the team has a few engineers on board and a version of the golden path that is meaningfully better than what existed before.
• By year one, the Service Registry is live, golden path adoption is measurable, and your team has a defined roadmap it owns.

Tech Stack

• Kubernetes
• Terraform
• AWS
• Spacelift
• GitHub Actions
• Datadog

What We Offer

• The opportunity to work in a growing team with big responsibilities that thrives on a strong exchange of knowledge and excellence.
• Attractive remuneration.
• Your choice of preferred OS, Windows or Mac.
• Flat hierarchy and transparent communication in a relaxed, professional atmosphere.
• Opportunity to develop your talent in a dynamic team with ambitious goals.
• Flexibility and possibility to work remotely.
• Monthly mobility benefit.
• Wellhub Membership.
• Pliant Card with monthly credit to explore the product and enjoy food with colleagues.