Software Engineering Manager
Location: Remote | Team: Engineering – Enterprise Learning & Skills
ABOUT THE ROLE
We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a team of 5–8 software
engineers on the Enterprise Learning & Skills (ELS) engineering team. The team
builds, scales, and evolves a large-scale, API-driven platform used globally to
issue and verify digital credentials. This is a people- and delivery-focused
leadership role: you'll own the day-to-day health, output, and growth of the
team, ensuring work stays on track, meets our standards for quality and
consistency, and delivers what the organization and our customers expect.
You'll allocate and prioritize daily work, clear blockers, clarify requirements,
and give real-time feedback so engineers can do their best work. You'll be the
first line of support when coding or system issues surface, deciding what the
team can resolve and what needs to be escalated to senior engineering
leadership. You'll also own onboarding and skill development for new team
members, and you'll partner closely with Product, Customer Success, and external
vendors to turn requirements into reliable, well-sequenced delivery. You don't
need to write production code, but you do need enough technical depth to guide
design discussions, hold the team to strong engineering practices, and ask the
right questions.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
Lead, coach, and support a team of 5–8 engineers building Ruby on Rails
services and React frontends, owning the team's well-being, performance, and
immediate output
Plan and allocate daily and sprint work, monitor progress against delivery
schedules, and keep projects on track through clear priorities and timely
course corrections
Troubleshoot obstacles, clarify requirements, and coordinate handoffs across
engineers, teams, and vendors so blockers are resolved quickly and together
Triage bugs and production issues with attention to detail, minimizing
disruption to the customers who rely on our platform
Maintain standards of quality and consistency within our defined processes,
including coding and QA standards, code review coverage, test thoroughness,
and team documentation
Give real-time, constructive feedback; run regular 1:1s; and celebrate team
milestones while openly recognizing individual contributions
Own the onboarding and skill development of new team members, reducing
ramp-up time and onboarding errors
Identify and introduce process improvements at the team level, within defined
limits, and escalate unresolved or higher-impact issues to senior engineering
leadership in a timely way
Champion the responsible use of AI-assisted development tools for coding,
testing, documentation, and debugging across the team
Uphold secure, ethical, and resilient engineering practices, including data
and information security expectations, across everything the team ships
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
5+ years of professional software development experience and 2+ years
managing or formally leading a software engineering team
Working familiarity with our core stack (Ruby on Rails, React, AWS,
PostgreSQL) and with API management, cloud computing, DevOps practices, and
software design, with enough technical acumen to guide discussions and
evaluate trade-offs
Proven track record of running a team's daily delivery reliably: consistent
adherence to coding and QA standards, accurate and timely task completion,
and dependable schedules
Strong problem-solving skills, with a habit of identifying challenges early,
evaluating options, and driving practical resolutions
Exceptional collaboration and communication, equally effective with
engineers, non-technical stakeholders, and external vendors
Experience onboarding and developing engineers, with evidence of shortened
ramp-up times and growing team capability
Sound judgment about when to resolve issues locally and when to escalate, and
a record of escalating clearly and promptly
Adaptability and a commitment to continuous learning as the team, platform,
and tooling evolve
Strong understanding of information and data security fundamentals and an
ethical, customer-centric approach to decisions
AI-NATIVE EXPECTATIONS
You should be comfortable using AI tools in your own work and confident guiding
a team that uses them for coding, testing, documentation, and learning. You'll
set expectations for how AI-generated output is validated, help the team build
sound judgment about when to rely on it and when not to, and stay curious about
how AI agents and automated AI can responsibly improve productivity and quality
across the team.
HOW SUCCESS IS MEASURED
High performers in this role are recognized by their team's consistent adherence
to coding and QA standards, the speed and accuracy of task completion, and the
reliability of daily delivery schedules. Timely escalation of unresolved issues,
high coverage on code review, and the successful introduction of team-level
process improvements are central to success. The readiness of new staff,
evidenced by reduced ramp-up times and fewer onboarding errors, also features in
performance assessment.
NICE TO HAVE
Hands-on background as a Rails, React, or full-stack engineer before moving
into management
Experience designing, deploying, or operating production workloads on AWS and
Azure, and familiarity with CI/CD and automated deployment practices
Experience managing work delivered in partnership with third-party or vendor
teams
Experience with resilience planning, incident management, or on-call
processes for customer-facing systems
Experience with distributed or service-oriented systems and asynchronous,
event-driven communication between services
Experience introducing AI agents or automated AI tooling into an engineering
team's workflow
Applications will be accepted through October 1. This window may be extended
depending on business needs.
Compensation at Pearson is influenced by a wide array of factors including but
not limited to skill set, level of experience, and specific location. As
required by the California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New
Jersey, New York State, New York City, Vermont, Washington State, and Washington
DC laws, the pay range for this position is as follows:
The full-time salary range for this role is between $150,000 - $190,000
This position is eligible to participate in an annual incentive program, and
information on benefits offered is here