Engineering Manager - Site Reliability

Job Description

At Sprout Social we are building software that is made to last. Our 20,000+ customers depend on us daily to connect them with their customers, so reliability, scalability, and performance are top of mind. Our software is used by companies like Evernote, Grubhub, Subaru and Edelman to create stronger relationships with their customers through social media. Each day, our platform processes 10s of millions of social media messages and our APIs handle over 10 billion requests per year to deliver our software to customers in over 100 countries.

We’re looking for an engineering manager to lead our SRE Core team within Infrastructure Engineering. This team’s mission is to:

• Ensure our core infrastructure is reliable, performant, cost-effective, and secure.
• Seek simplicity through standardization to minimize operational overhead, and maximize our product engineering teams ability to deliver new features and services efficiently.
• Empower product engineering teams to take on as much production ownership for their services as possible.

We strive to create “Paved Roads”: standard production-ready technology that all of our engineering teams can leverage to deliver value quickly. We do this with modern technologies like Docker and Kubernetes, and following best practices like immutability and infrastructure as code with Terraform and Chef. And we do it all by nurturing high trust relationships with the rest of our engineering teams we serve.

A key part of your role on the team will be that of 'player-coach,' working alongside some of your direct reports while also carving out time to help direct and support their professional development. While you should be excited about writing and shipping production-level code and systems, we want you to be equally excited about the trajectory of your team and your part in forming them as stellar engineers.

We are looking for a creative, collaborative, highly motivated, and strong technical leader to help build highly reliable and scalable solutions for our engineering org. If you are passionate about DevOps, excited to guide other engineers with their careers, and want to be on a team that has a huge impact across all of engineering, we’d love to talk with you!

Our engineering team is continuing to grow in 2020. As opportunities emerge, we are looking to find the best possible team members who want to grow their career as Sprout continues to grow. If you want to be on our radar as we have new openings, please share your resume for review. Applicants to this posting will only be contacted by a recruiter if we identify a position where there is a potential fit.

Within 1 month, you will:

• Complete Sprout’s New Hire training program alongside other new Sprout team members.
• Develop and deploy changes to production systems.
• Receive feedback on pull requests and actively pair with teammates.
• Become familiar with how we use key technologies such as Terraform, Chef, and Kubernetes.
• Shadow a team member for an on-call rotation.
• Review the team’s mission and goals for the year.

Within 3 months, you will:

• Join our on-call rotation (don’t worry we’ve got your back!)
• Help promote DevOps culture by working with engineers to assume operational ownership.
• Collaborate with your team members and fellow developers to deliver value to our users.
• Engage regularly with the team and Infrastructure Director to prioritize upcoming project work to align with longer term goals.
• Gain familiarity with our platform architecture.
• Contribute to our team’s culture of continuous improvement through retros and experimentation-oriented thinking.

Within 6 months, you will:

• Regularly collaborate with the team to identify technical debt and come up with a plan to improve, and weave that work in with projects.
• Meet with direct reports regularly and provide them with direct feedback on their work as well as formulating career growth plans.
• Participate in Engineering management discussions in order to learn from peer managers and to share lessons learned.
• Build relationships with product engineering teams to understand their pain points, and the value their software delivers for our customers.
• Build your engineering skills by attending in-house presentations, workshops, and training sessions.
• Form a career growth plan with your manager and work towards it.

Within 12 months, you will:

• Lead the team to solidify our Kubernetes offerings across engineering to enable teams to deliver value quickly without being a blocker.
• Help enable teams to manage their own infrastructure costs.
• Guide the team to reduce toil both within and outside Infrastructure through automation.
• Complete career ladder and performance review evaluations for your direct reports.
• Actively mitigate risk of failed delivery and missed deadlines through courageous, transparent communication with colleagues and stakeholders throughout a project life cycle.
• Mentor engineers, helping them level up technically.
• Build connections with members from other teams through active networking and community building.
• Have opportunities to contribute to in-house technical presentations and workshops that share your expertise with large groups of Sprout developers.
• Surprise us! Use your unique ideas and abilities to change your team in beneficial ways that we haven’t even considered yet.

Of course, what is outlined above is the ideal timeline, but things may shift based on business needs and other projects and tasks could be added at the discretion of your manager.

About Sprout Social
Sprout Social powers open communication between individuals, brands and communities through elegant, sophisticated software. We are relentless about solving hard problems for our customers and committed to both customer and team success.

Team Sprout is a group of very talented, smart and passionate people with broad interests and backgrounds. We believe that true employee engagement cannot happen if you can’t bring your whole self to work, so we’re committed to building a diverse team, embracing an inclusive culture and investing in equity across our organization. That dedication is core to Sprout. We want all candidates, particularly those coming from traditionally underrepresented groups in the technology industry, to know they are welcome at Sprout.

We’re proud to regularly be recognized for software, product and company culture achievements. Our team’s shared belief in Sprout’s mission promotes a culture of openness, empowerment and fun. We have built a benefits program to match the strength of our team. This program includes:

• Insurance and benefit options that are built for both individuals and families, including generous company contributions
• Progressive benefit programs, like our parental leave program
• High-quality and well-maintained equipment - your computer will never prevent you from doing your best
• Beautiful, convenient and state-of-the-art offices in Chicago's Loop
• Solid programs in some of the staples: transportation, disability and life insurance
• Wellness initiatives to ensure both health and financial well-being of our team
• Growing corporate social responsibility program that is driven by the involvement and passion of our team members

Sprout Social is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and an Affirmative Action Employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, marital status, order of protection status, citizenship status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Requests for accommodation will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.

For more information about our commitment to equal employment opportunity, please click here (1) Equal Opportunity Employment Poster (2) Sprout Social's Affirmative Action Statement (3) Pay Transparency Statement.

When you apply for employment with Sprout Social, we will process your job applicant data, including your employment and education history, transcript, writing samples, and references as necessary to consider your job application for open positions. For more information about our privacy practices please visit our Privacy Policy. California residents have additional rights and should review the Additional Disclosures for California Residents section in our Privacy Policy.

Additionally, Sprout Social participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law. We value the things that make us different and want to see how you can make our team better!