About the role

Engineering Manager – Core Platform
Location: New Zealand (remote-friendly)
Company: High-growth ANZ SaaS | ~50 people

Drive Technical Direction. Lift the Energy. Modernise the Platform.

A growing ANZ SaaS company is entering an exciting phase of platform modernisation and capability uplift.
The platform is built primarily on Ruby, React, and AWS, and they are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Core Platform team and play a key role in shaping the evolution of this stack.
This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who thrives in fast-moving, scrappy environments — not heavy enterprise process.

The Role

You’ll lead a team of 5 engineers responsible for core systems, platform architecture, and developer tooling across our Ruby / React / AWS environment.
Your focus will be to:

• Modernise platform architecture and internal tooling (Ruby backend, React frontend, AWS infrastructure)
• Improve developer experience and engineering standards
• Lift team energy, clarity and execution pace
• Balance hands-on technical engagement with people leadership (50/50 split)
• Run meaningful 1:1s and performance reviews
• Partner cross-functionally across product and leadership
• Engage with customers on technical discussions where needed
• Champion practical AI adoption across engineering workflows

This is a role with real influence. You’ll help shape how engineering operates across the company and evolve our cloud native SaaS platform.

What We’re Looking For

You’ll likely thrive here if you:

• Have experience in scrappy, high-growth SaaS companies
• Have managed small engineering teams (4–6 engineers)
• Bring energy, ownership and momentum to teams
• Are comfortable taking calculated risks and experimenting
• Prefer action and iteration over heavy process
• Are technically credible and hands-on in modern web stacks (Ruby, React, AWS or similar)
• Have experience with cloud-native architectures and infrastructure in AWS
• Have meaningfully adopted AI tools in development workflows
• Can confidently communicate with both engineers and customers

What This Role Is Not

This isn’t a heavily process-driven enterprise environment.
We’re not looking for a purely strategic manager disconnected from delivery.
We want someone who builds culture through action, energy and example.

Why Join?

• Genuine influence in a 50-person company
• Autonomy and ownership
• Opportunity to modernise systems end-to-end across Ruby, React and AWS
• Strong collaboration across ANZ
• A team ready for uplift and momentum
• The chance to shape the next stage of growth