Manager, Software Engineering (Platform Services)
TLDR
Lead a platform services team to deliver secure, scalable APIs and shared services, driving reliability, observability, and architectural modernization.
O.C. Tanner is the global leader in software and services that improve workplace culture through meaningful employee experiences. Our Culture Cloud is a suite of apps designed to enhance the employee experience with strategic recognition, service awards, wellbeing, leadership, and events that help people thrive at work. Our Culture by Design approach provides expert services to organizations looking to create great workplaces.
Our global team of 1,500 people hail from 58 countries and speak 62 languages. As programmers, researchers, designers, client professionals and craftspeople we create the tech, tools and awards that connect employees to purpose at thousands of companies. Join us as we help people all over the world thrive at work.
Our Platform Services teams build the shared capabilities that enable product teams to move faster and operate reliably. Success in this role requires building strong partnerships across engineering while delivering secure, scalable platform services.
Responsibilities:
- Lead, hire, coach, and develop a high-performing team of 5–10 software engineers, fostering accountability, technical excellence, collaboration, and continuous growth.
- Partner with Product Management, Quality Engineering, and cross-functional engineering teams to plan, deliver, and operate shared platform capabilities that meet business needs.
- Guide the delivery and evolution of secure, scalable, and reliable platform services and APIs, partnering with Staff Engineers to ensure sound technical architecture.
- Champion operational excellence through observability, automation, incident response, security best practices, and continuous improvement.
- Collaborate with Staff Engineers and Architects to define technical direction, develop technology roadmaps, and modernize systems to meet current and future business needs.
- Balance the delivery of new capabilities with investments in platform reliability, engineering productivity, technical debt reduction, and long-term maintainability.
Required Experience:
- 3+ years leading and developing software engineering teams.
- 5+ years delivering complex software systems in a professional engineering environment.
- Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, and develop engineers while fostering an inclusive, high-performing team.
- Experience balancing product delivery, operational excellence, and technical debt.
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, cloud-native architecture, and modern software engineering practices.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence technical and business stakeholders.
Preferred Experience:
- Experience leading platform services, backend, or shared-services teams.
- Experience building secure APIs, identity platforms, or other shared engineering services.
- Hands-on experience with backend and cloud-native technologies such as Java, Spring Boot, Kafka, GraphQL, SQL, Docker, Kubernetes, Redis, or public cloud platforms.
- Experience with highly available, distributed production systems.
- Experience with transactional systems, messaging, data integration, or financial systems.
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and emerging technical leaders.
Education Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or related discipline.
O.C. Tanner builds software and services aimed at transforming workplace culture by delivering meaningful employee experiences. Catering to organizations around the globe, their Culture Cloud suite enhances employee engagement through strategic recognition and wellbeing programs, while their Culture by Design services help businesses create positive work environments.