Engineering Manager Job Description
A complete engineering manager job description template, plus the ATS keywords recruiters screen for and how coding expectations vary by company.
Engineering Manager postings disagree with each other about something fundamental: how much of the job is still coding. Some companies want a "hands-on EM" who still reviews code, occasionally ships a feature, and stays technical enough to make real architecture calls. Others want someone fully out of the codebase, spending all of their time on people management, planning, and the cross-team coordination an individual contributor never had to do. Both are legitimate versions of the role, but they are different jobs, and a posting that doesn't say which one it means is asking you to guess.
The path into the role is just as inconsistent as the role itself. Many Engineering Managers are promoted from being the strongest senior or staff engineer on a team, often with no formal management training before the promotion — the company is betting that technical judgment transfers to people judgment, which it does not always do. Others are hired externally specifically for management experience, sometimes with a thinner recent hands-on technical background than the team they're joining. Postings rarely say which of these they're solving for, and an interview loop that still includes a coding round doesn't reliably predict management skill any more than skipping it reliably predicts the reverse.
If you're deciding whether you're ready for a first EM role, years of experience is a weaker signal than whether you've already been doing the job informally — mentoring, leading a project across other engineers, being the person newer hires go to before you had the title for it. That track record, more than a tenure number, is what the better interview loops are actually trying to find. And it's worth knowing the role isn't the only way up: most companies with a mature ladder also run a parallel IC track (staff, principal) for engineers who want to keep growing without managing people, so "I don't want to manage" doesn't have to mean "I've stopped growing."
Verrantine · Boston, MA
Full-time · Hybrid
$175,000 – $230,000
About the role
Verrantine is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead the Payments team, six engineers building and operating the systems that process every transaction on the platform. You'll own the team's roadmap, hiring, and performance management, and you'll stay hands-on enough to review architecture decisions and step into code when a critical issue needs it — this is a hands-on EM role, not a fully out-of-the-codebase one.
You'll report to the Director of Engineering and work closely with product and design leads to turn a quarterly roadmap into work the team can actually plan around. About half of your week is people-facing — 1:1s, hiring, performance conversations — and the rest is split between planning and staying technical enough that your team trusts your calls on the hard problems.
What you'll do
- Own hiring for the team: writing the role, running the loop, and making the final call on every offer.
- Run weekly 1:1s with every engineer on the team, and make them useful enough that people don't dread them.
- Own performance management, including calibrating levels, writing reviews, and having the hard conversations before they become surprises.
- Translate a quarterly roadmap into a plan the team can execute, adjusting scope honestly when reality disagrees with the plan.
- Stay technical enough to review significant architecture decisions and catch a bad one before it ships.
- Represent the team in cross-functional planning with product, design and other engineering teams.
- Protect the team's focus — deciding what doesn't get done is as much the job as deciding what does.
- Coach engineers on your team toward their own next step, whether that's a promotion, a lateral move, or their own management track.
What we're looking for
- Six or more years as a software engineer, including meaningful experience at senior level or above.
- Two or more years directly managing engineers, with real ownership of hiring and performance decisions.
- Enough current technical judgment to review architecture decisions and be trusted on the hard calls, even if you're not shipping code weekly.
- Experience running a team through a real prioritization conflict — more committed work than time, and a defensible call on what slips.
- A track record of engineers on your team being promoted, not just retained.
- Clear written and verbal communication — this role runs on both far more than an IC role does.
Nice to have
- Experience managing a team that owns a system with real financial or compliance stakes.
- Experience hiring at scale — more than a handful of roles closed in a single year.
- Formal management training or coaching, rather than management learned entirely on the job.
- Experience managing managers, or a clear interest in growing toward it.
- A technical background in backend or distributed systems specifically, given what this team owns.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employee premiums covered in full.
- 401(k) with a 4% company match, vested immediately.
- Hybrid schedule: three days a week in the Boston office.
- $2,500 annual learning budget, usable on conferences, courses or leadership coaching.
- Twenty-two days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$175,000–$230,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (3)
Important (8)
Mentioned in passing (7)
Frequently asked questions
How much of an Engineering Manager's job is actually coding?
It varies enormously, and it's one of the most important things to find out before accepting an offer. Some companies want a hands-on EM who still reviews architecture and occasionally ships code; others want someone fully out of the codebase, spending all their time on people and planning. Neither is the "real" version of the job — but they're different jobs, and the posting often won't tell you which one you're looking at. Ask directly what percentage of a typical week is spent on each.
Do I need to have been a senior engineer before becoming an EM?
Usually, but not universally. Most Engineering Managers are promoted from being a strong senior or staff engineer on the team they go on to manage. Some companies also hire management-track candidates externally, prioritizing people-management experience over recent hands-on depth. Both paths exist; a posting rarely says which one it's solving for, so it's worth asking in the interview.
What's the difference between an Engineering Manager and a Staff or Principal Engineer?
Engineering Manager is a people-management track: you're responsible for a team's output through the people on it. Staff and Principal Engineer are individual-contributor tracks: you're responsible for technical outcomes directly, often across more than one team, without managing anyone. Companies with a mature career ladder run both as parallel, equally senior paths. Some smaller companies conflate the two roles, which is worth noticing before you accept an offer expecting one and getting the other.
Is management the only way to keep growing past senior engineer?
No, and treating it that way is a common mistake. Most companies with a mature engineering organization run a dual-track ladder — a management track and a technical IC track (staff, principal) that keeps advancing in scope and compensation without adding people-management responsibility. If you don't want to manage, ask specifically whether that ladder exists here before assuming management is the only path up.
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