[Hiring] Senior Software Development Manager @Backblaze

Role Description

We are looking for a Senior Software Development Manager to lead the team responsible for Backblaze Computer Backup, spanning both the cross-platform desktop client and the backend services that receive, store, and restore customer data. This is a hands-on management role.

• Lead the full Computer Backup engineering team, which reports into this role, with Desktop and Backend Leads running the day-to-day of their areas.
• Set the long-term technical direction for Computer Backup, ensuring architecture and platform decisions hold up as the product and customer base grow.
• Own the multi-quarter delivery strategy for Computer Backup, and partner with Product leadership to help set the roadmap and negotiate scope, schedule, and priorities.
• Hold accountability for the team’s budget and spend, aligning headcount, tooling, and infrastructure investment with business priorities.
• Make technical and organizational decisions with broad, long-term impact, including shared platform components and infrastructure that other teams depend on.
• Ensure the desktop and backend areas operate well together, with shared goals and a consistent agile delivery process.
• Provide oversight of the team’s agile process, ensuring ceremonies such as sprint planning, backlog refinement, standups, and retrospectives are run well and consistently across both areas.
• Own delivery across the client and backend, from planning and design through implementation and post-launch support, partnering with dedicated QA and release teams for testing and delivery.
• Ensure the reliability, performance, and maintainability of the backup client and backend services that customers depend on to protect their data.
• Champion engineering quality by growing unit testing and other automated test coverage, and by keeping testing a first-class part of how the team builds and ships software.
• Take part hands-on in code reviews, architecture decisions, and technical problem-solving across both desktop and server work.
• Champion the effective use of AI-assisted development tools, guide the team in adopting agentic coding practices, and help establish norms around AI-augmented workflows.
• Continuously improve team productivity by identifying bottlenecks, refining processes, and investing in tooling and practices that help engineers do their best work.
• Negotiate directly with senior leadership and major customers on significant matters, represent the team in executive reviews, and communicate risks and trade-offs with clear recommendations.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of engineering management experience, including managing managers or team leads, ideally in a cloud, SaaS, desktop software, or platform engineering environment.
• Experience setting long-term technical direction and system architecture for a growing product or platform.
• Experience owning multi-quarter technical and delivery strategy and helping shape a product roadmap.
• Experience negotiating scope, schedule, and priorities with product and senior leadership.
• Accountability for a team or departmental budget, including resourcing and investment decisions.
• Deep experience with agile development processes, including scrum, sprint planning, backlog management, estimation, and retrospectives.
• Demonstrated experience managing distributed, remote engineering teams, including strong async communication and remote collaboration practices.
• Strong software engineering background with deep expertise in system architecture.
• Solid command of the full software development lifecycle, from requirements and design through deployment and production support.
• A strong commitment to engineering quality, including the value of unit testing and automated test coverage.
• Experience delivering software across desktop clients, backend services, or both.
• Excellent communicator and negotiator, able to work directly with senior leadership and major customers.
• Familiarity with AI agentic coding tools such as Claude Code and Codex is a plus.

Benefits

• Lead the organization building software that protects the data of hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide.
• Own a complete product end to end, from the desktop experience customers see to the backend that keeps their data safe.
• Shape the strategy, structure, and leadership team of a core product line, with direct access to senior leadership.
• Collaborate with experienced engineering, product, and QA teams in a flat, low-bureaucracy environment.
• Competitive compensation and benefits.
• Remote-first culture supporting work-life balance.
• The expected salary range for this role is $205,000-$255,000.