About Backblaze
Backblaze provides reliable, high-availability cloud storage and backup trusted by consumers, SMBs, enterprises, and developers in over 150 countries. Backblaze Computer Backup protects the data of hundreds of thousands of customers, backing up laptops and desktops across Windows and macOS to the Backblaze cloud. We build durable, scalable systems with a strong emphasis on reliability, product quality, and a great customer experience.
Role Overview
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. The entire Computer Backup engineering team reports into this role, which you will run through Desktop and Backend Leads who own the day-to-day of their areas. You will set the long-term technical direction for the product, own its multi-quarter delivery strategy, and hold accountability for the team’s budget and results.
This is a hands-on management role. You will take part in architecture discussions, code reviews, and technical decisions across both the desktop and backend sides of the product, while also owning strategy, budget, and the growth of your staff. The right candidate brings strong experience running agile teams, experience managing managers or team leads, deep expertise in system architecture, and a track record of leading distributed, remote-first engineering teams. You bring 7+ years of engineering management experience and enthusiasm for how AI-assisted development is changing the way software gets built.
What You'll Be Doing
- 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.
What We Are Looking For
- 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, with a track record of ensuring these ceremonies are run well and consistently for a delivery team.
- 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, able to engage hands-on in technical discussions, design reviews, and architectural decisions.
- 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, and a track record of building testing into a team’s everyday practice.
- Experience delivering software across desktop clients, backend services, or both.
- Excellent communicator and negotiator, able to work directly with senior leadership and major customers and to escalate risks early with clear recommendations.
- Familiarity with AI agentic coding tools such as Claude Code and Codex is a plus; we actively use them and value leaders who encourage their adoption.
Why Backblaze
- 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.
To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the amounts listed below.
The expected salary range for this role is $205,000-$255,000.
At this point, we hope you're feeling excited about the job description you're reading. Even if you don't meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply. Learning, developing, and growing are key parts of our culture. We're eager to meet people who believe in our mission and can contribute to our team in various ways. We want people to feel comfortable expressing their true selves and to come, stay, and do their best work here.
At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. That's why diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We believe that our dedication to cultivating a diverse workspace not only allows us to better serve our customers in over 175 countries but further reinforces our commitment to doing the right thing. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.
