Senior Engineering Manager

The posting, as Obviant wrote it

About Obviant

The defense market is surging, but the data that drives it hasn't kept up. Companies, government, and investors are forced into heavily manual processes, stitching together hundreds of disparate sources to make decisions that carry real national security weight.

Obviant has built the data source of truth and the AI tooling for defense acquisition. We fuse thousands of structured and unstructured sources into a coherent picture of budget, programs, and the organizations running them. We have high satisfaction at top-tier customers, we're growing fast, we're backed by leading venture funds, and we're advised by veterans from national security and the technology industry.

The Role

We're hiring a Senior Engineering Manager to own one team end to end either our data engineering team or our product/web application team, depending on where your strengths land. You'll inherit an existing team and, as we grow, help expand it. Your hiring bar becomes the team's bar.

This is not a coordination role. You'll set the technical bar, run the delivery cadence, grow the engineers on your team, and stay close enough to the code to earn their respect.

We set obsessively high standards, and here that isn't a slogan. Our customers make acquisition and investment decisions on what we show them, so being roughly right is not a viable product. Others might say we're too particular about it. That's fine we're running our own race, not theirs.

We're looking for someone who pairs technical excellence with the ability to extend that practice into a team leader who stays credible in the work while multiplying it through others.

What You'll Own

Four areas below, with the understanding that the list is never complete. Nobody here says "that isn't my job."

Technical leadership

• Set technical direction with your senior engineers, and guide the team through design tradeoffs, architecture decisions, and implementation quality
• Own the engineering standards and the quality bar you decide what "good" means on your team and make it stick, without becoming the bottleneck
• Raise the bar of the whole team, not just your own output. Mentor, review, and build a culture where quality is the default rather than a checklist someone enforces
• Drop into a tactical role when it's the fastest way to unblock the team or land a business-critical outcome. Do, don't say

People growth

• Develop engineers deliberately: real growth plans, direct feedback on a real cadence, and clear leveling conversations
• Keep it all in the open. Deliver hard feedback with candor and empathy, face to face, never through backchannels
• Make the hard calls with care and spine diagnose underperformance early, coach honestly, and handle exits with dignity for the person and clarity for the team
• Hire and expand the team as we grow, holding the bar under pressure to fill seats
• Manage up as well as down. Keep leadership and your peers ahead of what's coming, esca

[…]

• Bias for action: you move decisively with incomplete information. Action is the best medicine
• Strong opinions, loosely held: you argue a clear point of view, then update quickly when the evidence changes. Intellectual honesty over ego
• Continuous improvement: you measure how your team works, run real feedback loops, and close them
• People growth: you develop engineers, give direct feedback, and handle the hard calls with both care and spine

Our Principles

We live these every day. If they don't sound like you, this won't be a fit and we'd both rather know now.

• Impact. Our work matters. We take a lot of pride in building to advance mission outcomes.
• Overdeliver. We go above and beyond in everything we do - creating products and serving our users
• Hustle. We get stuff done, no matter what it takes.
• Empathy. Our users’ problems are our own. We don't push products, we solve problems.
• Humility. We’re not afraid to admit what we don’t know. Our job is to listen and grow.
• Integrity. Transparency & respect above all else. It’s non-negotiable, even when it isn't easy

Benefits & Structure

• Flexible schedule - We all have other things going on in our lives. Doctor visits, kids’ activities, dog walks - take care of it whenever you have to. And work from home when you need to.
• Sizeable equity - We’re building something with massive upside potential, and you’ll have ownership in that. This is ours.
• Flexible vacation time - Use what you want, as long as you’re taking care of what needs to get done.
• Full health, dental, and vision insurance.

To apply, visit https://www.google.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fobviant.com%2Fcareersobviant.com/careers http://obviant.com/careers

Obviant is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.