Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Niche is a school-search company that helps people research and enroll in schools through profiles, reviews, ratings, and search tools. Niche is seeking an experienced Tech Lead Manager to lead its student-facing engineering team, combining hands-on software development, technical direction, people management, product collaboration, and team process improvement.
Responsibilities
- You will own the professional development, career growth, and performance management of your direct reports, and lead the team's culture, direction, and execution
- Jointly with your Product Manager, you will own how the team works and evolve it toward faster delivery and rapid learning
- You will stay hands-on in the codebase: taking on inbound technical work directly, owning technical debt in your scope, and carrying enough depth in every project to challenge the technical approach rather than just track progress against it
- You act as the primary technical representative for your team
- You will also model effective AI-assisted development for your team, and monitor and act on team health
- Learn about Niche by meeting with various team members to learn more about our company through our Onboarding meetings
- Build rapport with your direct reports and understand each ongoing project deeply enough to have a real technical opinion on it
- Understand the team's current process (ceremonies, planning, review) as it exists today, before changing anything
- Be a regular, direct contributor to inbound technical work such as bug fixes, compliance work, technical debt, and smaller features
- Make your first joint call with Product on a process adjustment, however small
- Have established a working rhythm for 1:1s, performance conversations, and career development with each direct report
- Demonstrate ownership of a nontrivial technical decision or architectural direction for your team's systems
- Show a track record of catching and correcting technical or product-design issues before they became delivery problems
- Complete a full performance/calibration cycle for your direct reports
- Have led, jointly with Product, a deliberate evolution of your team's process informed by your learnings and experiments
- Be a recognized technical authority for your team's domain, trusted with architectural calls without needing to route them elsewhere
- Have a demonstrated record of balancing hands-on technical contribution with sustained people leadership
Skills
- Strong, current hands-on software engineering experience. This role requires writing and reviewing code regularly, not occasionally
- Prior experience owning both technical direction and people management, and a clear readiness to take on both at once
- Comfort operating without a separate Tech Lead to lean on. You are capable of independently representing the engineering function
- Experience with or strong aptitude for AI-assisted development tooling and workflows
- A track record of making pragmatic technical trade-offs under real delivery pressure
- Experience with, or openness to evolving, agile/Scrum-based team processes
- Niche will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future for this opening
- We are currently hiring in states where we currently have employees: AZ, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MO, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, DC, WV
- Sorry, we do not offer relocation assistance
Benefits
- Participation in the Annual Bonus and Stock Option Program
- Fully flexible workforce empowering employees to choose to work remotely, in the Pittsburgh office, or whatever combination suits them
- Best-in-class 100% paid employee health plan, including vision and dental and supplemental coverage
- Flexible Paid Time Off Policy
- Stipend that allows employees to build their work from home office
- Parental leave for all employees (12 weeks fully paid)
- Short term disability for birthing parents
- Meaningful 401(k) with employer match
Company Overview