Manager, Software Engineering - Data Platform

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of engineers building and operating Figma's data platform, owning delivery, technical direction, and team health.
• Set the roadmap and technical strategy for the sub-area, providing hands-on technical leadership where needed.
• Drive platform reliability, scalability, and long-term strategy as adoption grows across the engineering and product organization.
• Hire, grow, and coach engineers and tech leads, building a healthy, inclusive, high-performing team.
• Partner with Data Science, Product, Finance, and Engineering to identify priorities and drive alignment.
• Make build-versus-buy decisions, including evaluating and managing platform vendors.
• Balance predictable delivery with long-term platform investment.

Requirements

• 3+ years managing engineers, including senior individual contributors or tech leads, with experience building and scaling high-performing teams.
• Experience building and scaling data platform or data infrastructure systems in a production, online environment.
• Strong software engineering background with senior- or staff-level technical depth before moving into management.
• Sufficient current technical depth to set direct technical direction.
• Strong partnership skills and the ability to manage multiple cross-functional stakeholder groups.
• Ability to set technical direction, drive alignment, and prioritize clearly under ambiguity.
• Strong written communication skills.

Nice-to-haves

• Expertise in large-scale data processing systems, including batch, streaming, or applied AI and machine learning workloads.
• Familiarity with experimentation or feature-flagging platforms.
• Experience evaluating and managing vendor relationships.
• Demonstrated ability to develop tech leads and scale hiring at pace.

Compensation and Benefits

• Annual base salary range: $258,000–$376,000 USD.
• Equity and benefits including health, dental, and vision coverage; retirement benefits with company contributions; parental leave and family-planning support; mental health and wellness benefits; and paid time off.
• Additional benefits may include recharge days, cell phone and home internet reimbursements, lifestyle spending accounts, and an annual bonus plan for eligible non-sales roles.