Zürich, Zürich, Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra
Remote only
Not Available
This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for an Engineering Manager - Realtime based in Switzerland.
As Engineering Manager, you will lead a team responsible for building and operating a globally distributed real-time infrastructure that enables developers to deliver low-latency communication and data synchronization experiences. You will oversee a critical service built around messaging, presence, and database change notifications, balancing performance, reliability, scalability, and operating costs. Combining people leadership, technical guidance, and delivery ownership, you will help experienced engineers do their best work while maintaining high engineering standards. You will shape the team's roadmap, support its professional development, and ensure effective collaboration across a remote-first environment. You will also play a key role in incident management, operational excellence, and the continuous evolution of the platform.
You will lead the Realtime engineering team across people management, technical direction, delivery, and operational responsibilities. Your main responsibilities will include:
Team leadership and development: Build a healthy, high-trust team culture within a globally distributed environment. Conduct regular one-to-ones, manage performance, support career development, oversee onboarding, and handle team administration.
Recruitment and organizational development: Own the team's hiring plan and act as the Hiring Manager, leading first-round interviews and partnering with Talent Acquisition to attract and recruit strong candidates. Contribute to headcount planning, organizational design, and the development of engineering leadership.
Roadmap and delivery management: Own the team's roadmap and project execution, using Linear to establish priorities, clear milestones, and accountability.
Workflow and stakeholder coordination: Manage incoming requests and Slack triage, deciding what should be prioritized, delegated, or challenged. Provide regular team updates and maintain alignment with stakeholders without creating unnecessary processes.
Service quality and operational performance: Coordinate the team's response to support tickets and ensure service-level objectives (SLOs) are maintained.
Risk and dependency management: Identify delivery risks, dependencies, and technical trade-offs early, communicating them clearly to leadership.
Incident management: Train and operate as an Incident Commander, coordinating incident response, resolution, and follow-up activities.
Continuous improvement: Lead blameless post-incident reviews and ensure lessons learned translate into meaningful improvements.
The ideal candidate combines substantial engineering experience with a strong commitment to people management. You should be comfortable leading senior engineers, navigating complex distributed systems, and creating the structure needed for a high-performing remote team. Relevant qualifications and skills include:
At least 5 years of engineering experience, with sufficient technical depth to engage credibly with engineers working on complex systems.
At least 3 years of experience managing remote engineering teams.
Previous experience leading a team responsible for building and operating a low-latency, high-connection service, such as WebSockets, pub/sub, messaging, presence, or streaming systems.
Strong knowledge of distributed systems, including clustering, rate limiting, backpressure, and capacity planning.
Experience leading teams through production incidents affecting customer-facing services, including follow-up work and blameless reviews.
Experience understanding developer needs for real-time APIs or SDKs and shipping such products to external customers.
Experience managing globally distributed teams working asynchronously across multiple time zones.
Strong people-management capabilities, including performance management, career coaching, difficult conversations, and continuous feedback.
A demonstrated ability to build psychological safety, encourage open communication, and foster a constructive feedback culture.
A coaching-oriented leadership style, focused on removing blockers, sharing context, empowering engineers, and helping individuals grow.
The ability to create structure in ambiguous environments, make sound decisions, and operate effectively with a high degree of autonomy.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with a preference for clear documentation, asynchronous collaboration, and early communication of risks.
A collaborative, adaptable, and low-ego approach, with the ability to lead experienced engineers without needing to be the strongest technical voice in the room.
Genuine enthusiasm for people leadership and a strong commitment to helping engineering teams succeed.
Additional experience considered an advantage:
Experience with Elixir, Erlang, or the BEAM ecosystem.
Knowledge of PostgreSQL logical replication and Row Level Security (RLS).
Fully remote work: Work from anywhere in the world, with a WeWork membership or coworking allowance to support your preferred working environment.
Equity ownership: Receive an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) allocation and share in the company's long-term growth.
Technology allowance: Access a budget to equip your workspace with the laptop, monitor, headphones, and other tools you need.
Health coverage: Health insurance fully covered for employees and 80% covered for dependents, wherever you are.
Annual company off-sites: Join colleagues from around the world for a week of connection, collaboration, and team activities in a different city each year.
Flexible working arrangements: Benefit from an asynchronous working culture that gives you autonomy over your schedule and trusts you to manage your time.
Professional development: Receive an annual education allowance for courses, books, conferences, and other learning opportunities.
