Engineering Manager

The Democratic Data Exchange (DDx) is looking for an Engineering Manager to play a critical role in building and maintaining our data exchange platform that expands the Democratic and progressive data ecosystem by facilitating the real time, blind exchange of proprietary data with organizations, parties, committees, and campaigns.

Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, the Engineering Manager will serve as team lead for the DDx Exchange Engineering team, directly contributing to the culture and success of DDx by collaborating on the architecture and design of DDx software, overseeing all Exchange software development projects from inception to delivery, and managing the support and maintenance of Exchange tech.

This is a hands-on role that requires direct technical contributions and occasional on-call availability (which will be scheduled in advance).

Please know that job candidates do not always meet 100% of the preferred qualifications. If much of this job description resonates with you, we encourage you to apply.

At DDx, we believe:

• Empathy is the most important part of being a team member
• Inclusivity builds stronger, more supportive teams
• Thoughtfulness is good for business and good for teamwork
• Mentorship is something everyone should be involved in
• A bias toward action is better than delaying for a perfect solution

Responsibilities:

These responsibilities are core areas of work that this role may have, but this role may also have additional duties as assigned and determined by business needs.

Strategic Leadership and Team Management:

• Collaborate across the company and with external technical partners to architect solutions for DDx software systems
• Conduct regular, productive 1:1s with direct reports. Conduct regular performance evaluations, provide constructive feedback, and develop growth plans for each team member.
• Provide regular, constructive feedback to engineering team members, addressing both strengths and areas for improvement.
• Foster a collaborative team environment and effectively manage relationships with other teams and stakeholders

Project Management and Execution:

• Effectively manage team’s project delivery, ensuring timely completion and clear communication of progress and obstacles
• Set clear priorities for the team, aligning with organizational goals and communicating dependencies across teams
• Set up and oversee a structured approach to project kickoffs, including detailed scoping, resource allocation, and risk assessment
• Develop and maintain project timelines, regularly communicating progress and potential blockers to stakeholders

Technical Support and System Reliability:

• Manage the engineering support process to ensure timely resolution of support requests, implementing SLAs and escalation procedures as needed
• Ensure DDx technology uptime and data integrity is maintained, owning the incident response and remediation process
• Work proactively to prioritize and implement robust monitoring and observability solutions
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive on-call rotation system and incident management protocol

Talent Development and Team Growth:

• Identify skill gaps within the team and develop targeted training programs or hiring strategies to address these gaps
• Actively guide team members’ professional growth. Lead by example, demonstrating strong technical skills and work ethic. Provide opportunities for skill development and support career advancement within the team.
• Actively participate in the hiring process, ensuring the team grows with high-quality talent that fits the company culture

Technical Excellence and Innovation:

• Stay abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies, evaluating their potential application to DDx systems
• Ensure team adheres to security best practices and actively consider security implications in their work
• Ensure team follows best practices in software design, promoting code quality and maintainability and maintaining strong documentation standards
• Foster a culture of innovation, encouraging team members to propose and prototype new ideas

Required Qualifications: 

• Have experience leading a software engineering team and managing the software delivery lifecycle
• Be comfortable leading teams to implement new systems and processes as well as working with, clarifying, and finding creative solutions for ambiguous requirements
• Have significant experience working with data warehousing or analytics-focused databases
• Have experience building performant data orchestration pipelines and ETL applications
• Have experience writing and refactoring code into organized, maintainable, and flexible systems
• Have experience managing infrastructure and deployments in cloud environments
• Have experience with continuous integration and delivery systems and pipelines
• Prefer open source solutions over commercial solutions
• Have some experience in some of the following:
  • Python, Typescript, React
  • SQL, Snowflake Data Cloud, Google BigQuery
  • Dagster, Airflow, dbt
  • AWS: S3, EC2, Lambda, IAM, KMS, SQS, SNS
  • Terraform
  • OIDC Authentication

Desired Qualifications: 

• Strong experience with political data or equivalent experience is a plus
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience setting and monitoring key metrics for a team
• Adept at client management, stakeholder management, and political navigation
• Proven ability to create accurate, effective, and polished client-facing deliverables

Additional Requirement:

Must be authorized to work in the U.S. without restriction.

Location:

• Remote position; anywhere in the US. DDx is a remote-first organization.
• While this position is remote, this role may require 10% travel. Expected travel may include in-person team gathering in one location in the United States for retreats or in-depth collaborative opportunities. This would likely require travel and overnight stays in a location outside of one’s home location, though would be scheduled in advance to account for planning.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions:

• Ability to sit at a computer monitor for extended periods of time
• Ability to lift up to 20 pounds occasionally

Salary and Benefits:

DDx offers a competitive compensation salary and benefits package, including:

• Company-paid healthcare, dental, and vision insurance for full-time employees
• Matching 401(k) contributions up to 3% after three months of employment
• Unlimited paid time off (PTO) policy
• 16 weeks of paid leave for new parents
• Generous holiday schedule and monthly team wellness days

The salary range for this position is $160,000 – $175,000.

Hiring Process: 

While there may be shifts to the hiring process, this is the anticipated hiring process’s steps for any candidates who advance from the application stage onwards:

• Phone Screening: A 30-minute audio-only initial interview with a team member
• First Round Interview: A 45-60-minute audio and video interview with a team member or multiple team members
• Second Round Interview/Written Prompt: A written prompt followed by a second round interview
• Final Round Interview: A 30-60 minute audio and video interview with an executive team member
• Request for References: This will be a request for 3 professional references, one of which should be a previous direct supervisor

About Us:

Founded in 2019, the Democratic Data Exchange (DDx) is a for-profit company that aims to expand access to data within the Democratic and progressive ecosystem by facilitating the real-time blind exchange of program data across the ecosystem and providing easy-to-use tools to help clients accomplish their goals.

We believe that when Democratic and progressive data ecosystems have access to the most robust and complete pool of program data possible, they can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their campaigns and organizing work, build long-term power in our communities, and win elections.

DDx is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.