Senior Engineering Manager, Infrastructure & Data Engineering

Job Description

Today, 67% of students and 82% of low-income students can’t read at grade level by the end of third grade. That’s when students are supposed to go from learning to read to reading to learn. It’s America’s number one education crisis and we know how to fix it.

Ignite Reading delivers one-to-one virtual tutoring that teaches every student the foundational skills they need to become a confident, fluent reader. We pair students who need extra support with expert reading tutors who provide daily, 15-minute, Science of Reading-based instruction that rapidly closes their decoding gaps. We focus on the foundational reading skills—phonics, phonemic awareness, and sight words—kids need to master so they can decode a sentence. Students in Ignite Reading’s program achieve over 2 weeks of reading skills growth per week of instruction, and notably all students achieve the same outstanding results including students with IEPs, multilingual learners, students of color and those receiving free or reduced-price lunch.

Ignite Reading is a mission-driven public benefit corporation. We believe we can do well for our team members and shareholders while we solve one of the nation’s biggest challenges. We believe we will be more successful with a diverse team and are seeking candidates who have lived experience related to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Your Role

Reporting to the Director of Engineering, the Senior Platform Engineering Manager, Infrastructure & Data Engineering owns the platform on which all of Ignite Reading’s engineering and analytics work runs. You will lead two teams — DevOps and Data Engineering (six engineers total) — that together provide the cloud infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and data platform serving a 33-person engineering organization and our Data team.

This is a player-coach role. You will manage and grow experienced engineers, set technical direction across both teams, and stay close enough to the work to review designs, shape architecture, and earn the trust of senior ICs. You will also own our security compliance program — our annual SOC2 audit and penetration test — as a program leader coordinating auditors, vendors, and internal teams.

We don’t expect deep expertise in both infrastructure and data engineering — leaders with that profile are rare, and the role doesn’t require it. We’re looking for real depth in one domain and genuine fluency in the other: enough to guide technical decisions, ask the questions that matter, and know when to lean on your senior engineers.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, manage, and grow two teams: DevOps (cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, observability, incident response) and Data Engineering (pipelines, warehouse, data platform).
• Provide technical guidance, mentorship, and career development for six engineers, including developing technical leads within each team.
• Set and drive a unified platform roadmap in partnership with the Director of Engineering and VP of Data, balancing infrastructure investment, data platform direction, and technical debt against delivery needs.
• Ensure reliable, scalable, secure cloud infrastructure on AWS and smooth, efficient deployment pipelines for the entire engineering organization.
• Ensure the data platform serves both of its customers well — product engineering and our analytics/data science team — with clear intake, prioritization, and data quality standards.
• Oversee system monitoring, alerting, on-call, and incident response to maintain high availability and performance.
• Own the annual SOC2 audit cycle and annual penetration test: planning, evidence collection, vendor and auditor coordination, and remediation tracking.
• Collaborate with development teams to integrate DevOps and data best practices into the software development lifecycle.
• Contribute technically — writing and collaborating on technical specifications, reviewing designs, and guiding architectural decisions across both teams.

AI-Enhanced Engineering Leadership

• Model effective use of AI coding and analysis tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude, etc.) in your own technical work.
• Coach both teams on AI-assisted development practices; identify and remove barriers to adoption.
• Ensure AI-generated code and configuration are validated to meet quality, security, and architecture standards — especially critical in infrastructure and data pipeline contexts.
• Track and share team-level AI adoption progress, wins, and learnings across the engineering organization.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software, infrastructure, or data engineering, including 2+ years directly managing engineers (not solely projects or tech leadership).
• Deep, hands-on expertise in at least one of our two domains: cloud infrastructure/DevOps (AWS, IaC, CI/CD, containerization, observability) or modern data engineering (orchestration, warehousing, pipelines-as-code, data quality).
• Working fluency in the other domain — able to review designs, guide priorities, and support senior engineers credibly.
• Experience running a team that serves multiple internal customers, with a track record of transparent prioritization across competing demands.
• Familiarity with security and compliance standards such as SOC2, and comfort owning a compliance program end-to-end (coordination and program management — not security engineering).
• Experience developing senior engineers into technical leads and building team resilience (documentation, on-call health, single point of failure reduction).
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering, data, and business stakeholders.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to balance short-term objectives with long-term goals.
• Ability to be self-managing and flexible while working in a remote environment.

AI Coding Proficiency

• Demonstrated experience using AI coding assistants as a regular part of your development workflow.
• Ability to effectively validate AI outputs and identify when AI suggestions should be modified or rejected.
• Understanding of when AI tools add value versus when traditional approaches are more appropriate.
• Willingness to learn, adapt to, and coach others on new AI development tools and practices.

Compensation & Benefits

At Ignite Reading, we embrace transparent compensation for a few reasons: to promote fairness and equity, to reduce pay discrimination based on gender, race, or negotiation skill, and to build trust within our team. The same role receives the same compensation — no negotiation.

Salary: $210,000-$220,000

We also ensure you have the tools you need to thrive both in and out of work.

📈 Employee Stock Options - we want our success to be yours too

🏥 Short-term Disability (100% employer paid)

👶 12-weeks paid parental leave

🌴 Unlimited vacation days (+ 12 paid holidays)

💻 Technology Stipend

🧘 Wellness Stipend

🛟 Voluntary Life Insurance

👩‍💻 Professional Development Stipend

Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds often don't apply for roles if they don't meet all the criteria – unlike majority candidates meeting significantly fewer requirements. We strongly encourage you to apply if you’re interested!

We are seeking candidates who have lived experience related to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are a virtual organization with headquarters in the California Bay Area.