Manager, Software Development (Platform)

At Appian, we’re not only about building awesome software, but also about growing our culture of passion, energy, and innovation; great people, great software! As a Platform Engineering Manager at Appian, you will provide technical leadership, direct 1-on-1 mentoring, and coaching, and are responsible for the professional growth and development of engineers. Managers also work directly on teams and act as servant leaders who enjoy helping their group succeed. Along with managing a cohort of engineers, you apply software engineering solutions to operational problems and drive the delivery of Cloud Native features, working closely with our product and support teams, and driving changes that will improve our organization overall.

About you:

• You have 3+ years experience as Software Development Manager and experience as a Cloud Native engineer (in the areas of networking) or other DevOps based role and either a BS in Computer Science, or a related field, or MS in Computer Science, or a related field.
• You have managed 5-6 software engineers, and provided technical leadership, direct 1-on-1 mentoring and coaching to improve their technical skills, while also handling general HR management responsibilities 
• Strong skills in one or more programming and scripting languages (Go, Java, Python, Bash or equivalent)
• Strong skills in programming and debugging a complex application
• Experience and knowledge in these areas will be an add-on, AWS, Terraform, Linux, Git, Gitlab, Github, CI, Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, ArgoCD  
• Familiarity with modern observability tools (Grafana, Prometheus, or equivalent)
• You have strong communication, negotiation, and collaboration skills; ability to convey complex, emergent, problems in a way that lets us focus on solving the root cause of the problem, rather than its symptoms.
• You have a proven ability to make difficult decisions about what to prioritize and what to ignore. You identify where you can make the most beneficial impact for our customers and continue working until that benefit has been achieved.
• You’re passionate about adding data to our processes where it’s missing so that we can gain insight in to where our problems are
• You’re analytical by nature with an innate ability to understand and solve failures due to complex system interactions.
• You understand the value of open-source technologies, how they add capabilities that we would not want to build and maintain ourselves, and know how to get them deployed and adopted in a mature software development environment.
• Most importantly, you’re passionate about keeping the customers we have happy with our product!

How you’ll contribute:

• Effectively manage up to 6 direct reports through mentoring and coaching.
• Develop and guide the career paths of direct reports.
• Be an active participant in team discussions and collaboratively work with others to design features and create delivery plans.
• Provide input to create staffing plans with departmental leadership.
• Be an agent for change, at both the team and departmental level.
• Foster a culture of learning and growth.
• Perform HR Management tasks related to each direct report; such as expense report approval, communication of raises and bonuses, performance reviews, etc.
• Participate as a key team member, providing code reviews, feedback on designs, and be a strong contributor to software projects, implementing core aspects and providing feedback on their purpose, desired outcomes, and business impact
• Align with the product owner and our customer support department to understand our customer needs and set appropriate expectations.
• Promote features and practices that strengthen and enable a culture of continuous improvement.
• Accountable for the delivery and management of the features that the squad owns.

Preferred Experience Level:

• 2+ years of relevant management, 2+ years of relevant experience, preferably in a Networking or DevOps role with a M.S.
• 4+ years of relevant management, 4+ years of relevant experience, preferably in a Networking or DevOps role with a B.S.