Engineering Manager

Location: Santa Clara, CA (5 days/week in office)
Comp: ~$250K–$300K base + equity

Who We Are

Building the Backbone of Distributed Applications.

At Orkes, we are reimagining how developers build reliable, scalable, event-driven applications without wrangling complex infrastructure.

Born from Netflix's battle-tested open-source project, OSS Conductor, our platform is now powering billions of mission critical workflows across fintech, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare, and more.

Our platform powers billions of mission critical workflows across industries like fintech, e-commerce, logistics, and healthcare helping companies run the core operations of their business with confidence. These are the workflows behind every transaction, every delivery, every patient check-in, quietly orchestrating our digital world.

We’re solving some of the hardest infrastructure problems: how do you make distributed systems reliable, observable, and scalable – without every team having to reinvent the wheel? We absorb the complexity of distributed systems, letting teams build with confidence.

We’re hiring a strong engineering leader to own the Cloud & Platform engineering function at Orkes.

This is a high-impact, highly operational role; you’ll lead engineers while staying deeply hands-on in architecture, systems, and production challenges. The primary goal is to drive velocity of engineers on the team.

We are open to:

• A hands-on Tech Lead ready to step into management

• OR a Manager who still codes and operates at a high technical level

What You’ll Own

Cloud & Platform Engineering

• Lead systems responsible for cloud infrastructure, deployments, and platform capabilities

• Support customer environments and production systems at scale

• Drive improvements in reliability, performance, and scalability

Team Leadership (Player-Coach)

• Lead and mentor engineers while contributing technically

• Review architecture, code, and system design

• Potential to grow and manage a larger team over time

Execution in a Startup Environment

• Handle frequent context switching across priorities

• Support high-profile customers and urgent production needs

• Drive velocity while maintaining engineering quality

What We’re Looking For

• Strong background in distributed systems / cloud infrastructure

• Proven experience as a hands-on engineer (recently)

• Experience leading engineers (formal or informal)

• Ability to operate in high-context-switch, fast-moving environments

• Startup experience or large-company experience with understanding of scale

What Won’t Work

• Managers who have been out of hands-on engineering for too long

• Pure people managers without deep technical credibility

• Engineers who struggle with fast pace or shifting priorities

Ideal Profile

• Former senior/staff engineer stepping into leadership

• OR current EM who still codes and leads technically

• Someone who has seen both startup and structured scale