Engineering Manager (f/m/d)

About the Opportunity

We are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a high-performing, globally-distributed web development team responsible for shaping and executing the technical strategy for semantics and search. This role will focus on enhancing and maintaining the platform's core content capabilities, including taxonomies, ontologies, tags, and search. You’ll partner closely with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment between technical goals and business objectives, driving scalable, high-performance solutions that power Contentful’s website and user experiences.

What to expect? 

In this role you’ll get to work closely with senior stakeholders across the business to understand business strategy & goals, and work with internal teams and external partners to ensure our technical architecture, tech stack and development strategy are aligned to drive success for our site visitors and internal site users, and deliver impact against business goals.

• Lead and grow a globally-distributed web development team, ensuring a culture of high performance, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Mentor and develop team members across all levels.
• Define the team roadmap, with a particular focus on managing content structures, including taxonomies, ontologies, and tagging systems, as well as optimizing search functionality (both backend and storage). The EM is accountable for collaborating with Product and Design to craft the roadmap and ensuring its successful execution.
• Work closely with stakeholders in Product, Design, Research,  Infrastructure, and Security to translate business needs into technical solutions, ensuring seamless integration of the Content Platform’s capabilities (APIs, entities, etc.) into the web experience.
• Oversee the technical approach for integrating and scaling the platform's content management features (such as taxonomies and search) on contentful.com. Ensure that the architecture remains performant, secure, and scalable as user needs grow.
• Guide the team through solutioning, coding, testing, and deployment. Ensure adherence to best practices in coding, architecture, and testing. Foster a collaborative, innovative development environment.
• Mentor junior and senior developers, promoting technical excellence and helping to build individual and team growth through hands-on leadership and ongoing feedback.
• Oversee day-to-day web development operations, ensuring that the team has the capacity to cover all technical tasks, maintenance, and new feature development, all while ensuring global coverage for continuous web operations.
• Work with Product Managers to define, prioritize, and execute the roadmap, balancing user impact with business objectives. Ensure clear communication of goals, progress, and blockers to stakeholders.

What you need to be successful

We’re looking for an enthusiastic Engineering Manager who is excited to build a cutting-edge web experience. To succeed in this role, you:

• 2+ years of experience leading development teams, with a track record of delivering complex, high-impact technical solutions.
• Are proficient in web technologies (e.g., JavaScript, React, Node.js) and familiar with headless CMS platforms (preferably Contentful).
• Excel at optimizing performance and scalability, with experience handling complex content structures and large datasets.
• Balance innovation with immediate impact, overseeing technical delivery while driving team capabilities and capacity. You’re eager to work with the latest technologies and products. 
• Collaborate effectively across teams (Product, Design, Data, Engineering), aligning technical work with business goals. 
• Have a strong mentoring track record, fostering a culture of continuous learning, technical excellence, and quality within a distributed team.
• Bring people management experience with familiarity in performance reviews, check-ins, and calibration sessions to ensure consistent feedback and growth.
• Embrace continuous learning, staying up to date with industry trends and encouraging growth within your team. 

Bonus:

• Experience with API-first platforms and optimizing front-end systems that consume complex API data.
• Familiarity with search engines and technologies like Elasticsearch or Solr.
• Knowledge of data privacy and security best practices in web technologies.
• Good understanding of content organization, metadata systems (taxonomies, ontologies), and how they integrate into web platforms.
• PostgreSQL knowledge, including designing, optimizing, and maintaining relational databases, with a focus on ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance of data-driven applications

What’s in it for you?

• Join an ambitious tech company reshaping the way people build digital experiences
• Full-time employees receive Stock Options for the opportunity to share in the success of our company
• Fertility and family building benefits, including a lifetime reimbursable wallet to support your growing family.
• We value Work-Life balance and You Time! A generous amount of paid time off, including vacation days, sick days,  education days, compassion days for loss, and volunteer days
• Time off to care for and focus on your growing family 
• Use your personal annual education budget to improve your skills and grow in your career
• Enjoy a full range of virtual and in-person events, including workshops, guest speakers, and fun team activities, supporting learning and networking exchange beyond the usual work duties 
• An annual wellbeing stipend to care for your physical, financial, or emotional health
• A monthly communication phone/internet stipend and phone hardware upgrade reimbursement.
• New hire office equipment stipend for hybrid or distributed employees. Get the gear you need to work at your best.

#LI-Hybrid #LI-KH1