Engineering Manager – Data & AI Platform

Job Requirements Phenom Intro: Our purpose is to help a billion people find the right job! Phenom is an AI-Powered talent experience platform that is redefining the HR tech space. We have grown into a global organization with offices in 6 countries and over 2,000 employees. As an HR tech unicorn organization, innovation and creativity is within our DNA. Come help us make every talent moment Phenomenal!

Job Summary Phenom People is looking for a high-caliber Engineering Manager to lead our Data Platform team. In this hybrid leadership and technical role, you will oversee a high-performing team of 5+ engineers while architecting enterprise-grade, real-time data pipelines and cutting-edge AI-driven conversational analytics.

This is a 5-day in-office role designed for a collaborative leader who thrives on close-knit team interaction, architecting resilient Lakehouse platforms (Iceberg, Snowflake, Flink, Spark), and driving next-generation agentic AI solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Engineering Management
• Direct, mentor, and grow an in-office team of 5+ high-performing data and software engineers.
• Drive operational excellence, daily sprint execution, and career development for team members.
• Conduct architecture reviews, enforce strict coding standards, and maintain team velocity and high morale through active, in-person engagement.
• Manage resource allocation and technical roadmaps in close alignment with Product and Leadership goals.
• Architecture, AI & Technical Ownership
• Oversee the end-to-end data architecturefrom real-time stream processing to Lakehouse storage and consumption layers.
• Drive the design and implementation of Agentic AI workflows and conversational analytics platforms (NLP-to-SQL, embedding-based search, dynamic analytical agents).
• Lead the adoption and optimization of Apache Iceberg, Snowflake, and AWS EMR for enterprise scale.
• Architect and oversee real-time (Flink) and batch (Spark) pipelines, including CDC ingestion (e.g., MongoDB -> Lakehouse).
• Implement robust data modeling standards, semantic layers (dbt, Cube), and data governance practices.
• Strategic Collaboration & Execution
• Serve as the bridge between business stakeholders, Product Management, and engineering execution.
• Ensure platform reliability, cost optimization, low latency, and adherence to strict data availability SLAs.
• Foster a collaborative, innovation-driven culture within the team.

Work Experience Required Skills & Qualifications: Leadership & Work Model

• Work Model Availability: Willingness and availability to work 5 days a week from the office.
• Total Experience: 14+ years of experience in Data Engineering, Big Data Architecture, or Distributed Systems.
• People Management: 3+ years of direct people management experience leading teams of 5+ software/data engineers.

Core Technical & Data Modeling Expertise

• Data Modeling: Expert knowledge in advanced enterprise data modeling, schema evolution, query optimization, and dynamic semantic layer design.
• Data & Compute Stack: Hands-on architectural depth with Apache Flink, Apache Spark, Apache Iceberg, Snowflake, and AWS EMR.
• Ingestion & Pipelines: Proven experience implementing real-time CDC data pipelines (specifically MongoDB to Lakehouse ecosystems) and Airflow orchestration.
• Programming Languages: High proficiency in Python and/or Java.

Conversational Analytics

• Conversational Analytics: Track record of delivering AI/NLP-powered interfaces (e.g., Natural Language to SQL, automated insights generation).

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Experience building or managing teams that develop Agentic AI systems, autonomous workflows, and LLM-driven architectures.
• Experience with Kafka, Kubernetes (EKS), or serverless compute architectures.
• Experience in building self-service, enterprise-wide analytics platforms.
• Exposure to vector databases, embeddings, and RAG architectures for unstructured data processing.

Benefits Benefits We want you to be your best self and to pursue your passions!

• Health and wellness benefits/programs to support holistic employee health.
• Flexible hours and working schedules, as well as parental leave for new parents.
• Growing organization with career pathing and development opportunities.
• Tons of perks and extras in every location for all Phenoms!

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Our commitment to diversity runs deep! Diversity is essential to building phenomenal teams, products, and customer experiences. Phenom is proud to be an equal opportunity employer taking collective action to build a more inclusive environment where every candidate and employee feels welcomed.

We recognize there is more to be done. Our teams are committed to continuous improvement until these powerful ideas are ingrained in our culture for Phenom and employers everywhere!