Tech Lead / Engineering Manager
Hands-on Tech Lead / Engineering Manager to lead a small pod of 3-4 engineers at Aurelian, building AI tools for 911 centers. 70% IC (ship code, own technical direction) and 30% leadership (mentoring, hiring) initially, transitioning to full EM role. Requires 3+ years engineering experience with informal leadership, strong coding skills, customer empathy, and desire to grow into management.
About the job
What You'll Be Doing
- Lead a small pod of 3-4 engineers in your surface area. Own technical direction and code review.
- As the team grows, pick up 1:1s, growth plans, and performance work.
- Stay hands-on: ship code, review code, debug production issues. Never get more than a few days away from the codebase.
- Develop the engineers around you: pair, mentor, coach. Help them grow toward bigger scope and impact.
- Be involved in hiring for your team.
- Work directly with customers: visit 9-1-1 dispatch centers, observe product usage, and use that context to drive what your team builds next.
- Grow into a full EM seat: as the company scales, move into fuller Engineering Manager scope with more reports, less code, and more strategy.
Who We're Looking For
- Leadership spike: 3+ years of software engineering experience. You've already led on your team (formally or informally) - mentored other engineers, owned cross-functional projects, or driven changes without a clear owner.
- Wants to grow into management: desire for the management path, growing engineers, running a team, and eventually owning a full EM seat.
- Strong, capable engineer: able to land in the codebase quickly, ship features, read code well, reason about architecture, and care about engineering craft.
- High ownership and pragmatic urgency: see a problem, determine the right solution, and drive it to completion. Take responsibility for outcomes beyond just your code.
- Clear communicator: explain technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders; write readable design docs.
- Customer empathy: genuinely interested in understanding how people use software; energized by customer conversations and site visits.
Nice-to-Haves
- Experience or interest in public safety technology, AI agents, or real-time assistance tools.
- Background visiting customer sites or working with non-technical domain experts (e.g., emergency dispatchers).
Compensation & Benefits
- Salary: $160,000 - $300,000
- Comprehensive Medical, Dental, Vision & Life insurance
- 401(k)
- Unlimited PTO
- Company-wide offsites
- Equipment stipend
- Relocation assistance
- Daily delivered lunches
- Office in Seattle
- Start-up Equity
Skills
Code Review, Mentoring, Technical Leadership, Architecture Design, Debugging, Hiring, Customer Engagement, Design Documentation
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