Manager, Automation Engineering

We are seeking a technically adept Manager of Automation Engineering to lead the development and optimization of automation solutions that drive developer productivity, enhance software quality, and reduce technical debt. This role is pivotal in implementing scalable frameworks, improving service-oriented architecture (SOA) practices, and enabling teams to measure and achieve excellence in delivery. The ideal candidate is passionate about empowering developers, improving engineering efficiency, being data driven, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Addepar takes a market-based approach to pay. A successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on the role, job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target base salary for roles in Colorado, California, and New York. 

The current range for this role is $158,000 - $248,000 + bonus + equity + benefits.

Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process. Additionally, these ranges reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Technical Leadership and Team Development:
• Lead and mentor a team of automation engineers, fostering technical innovation and career growth.
• Define and implement strategies for building and maintaining scalable automation frameworks.
• Build a team capable of supporting both developer enablement and quality assurance needs.
2. Developer Enablement:
• Design and implement automation tools that streamline the SDLC, including test data generation, environment setup, and deployment pipelines.
• Integrate automation into CI/CD workflows to enable rapid feedback and seamless deployments.
• Drive the adoption of developer-first tools that reduce friction and accelerate the development process.
• Implement and maintain a centralized software catalog to improve discoverability, compliance, and reuse of automation tools and services.
3. Technical Debt Reduction and Modernization:
• Identify and prioritize technical debt in automation frameworks and infrastructure.
• Modernize legacy systems and integrate them with contemporary tools and methodologies.
• Develop strategies to enhance maintainability, scalability, and performance of automation systems.
• Continuously evaluate emerging technologies and frameworks to enhance developer and quality enablement.
4. Quality Assurance and Metrics:
• Define and track metrics to evaluate delivery performance and identify improvement areas, e.g., DORA metrics - deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery
• Drive robust test automation strategies to enhance reliability and ensure consistent quality across releases.
• Ensure comprehensive testing coverage, including functional, integration, and end-to-end tests, with an emphasis on SOA and microservices.
5. Collaboration and Cross-Team Alignment:
• Partner with engineering, DevOps, and architecture teams to align automation strategies with organizational goals.
• Collaborate on service integration testing, contract testing, and system-level quality initiatives.
• Facilitate discussions on tooling, best practices, and automation priorities across teams.

Required Qualifications:

• Proven experience managing or leading technical teams in automation engineering or developer enablement.
• Expertise in designing and implementing automation frameworks for SOA and microservices architectures.
• Strong programming skills in languages such as Python, Java, or JavaScript, with a focus on maintainability and scalability.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code (IaC), and build automation tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Terraform).
• In-depth understanding of service integration testing, contract testing, and system reliability testing.
• Demonstrated success in measuring and improving DORA metrics across teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with cloud-native technologies and platforms (e.g., AWS).
• Familiarity with developer tooling and software cataloging tools and practices (e.g., Backstage, SonarQube, IDE plugin development)
• Expertise in pipeline technologies and practices, including CI/CD orchestration, artifact management, and automated rollbacks (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Artifactory)
• Proficiency with build tools and dependency management systems (e.g., Maven, Gradle, Bazel, npm, Yarn)
• Experience with containerization and orchestration tools (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes)
• Strong understanding of Agile and DevOps principles