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Our mission is to change the way developers build software.
The Role
Lead Retool’s Automation engineering team building workflows, integrations, and AI-driven agents. Set technical strategy, guide architecture for execution infrastructure and reliability, partner with Product, Design, customers, and go-to-market teams, and drive delivery from scoping through launch. Coach engineers, manage performance, recruit talent, and establish processes that improve collaboration, maintainability, and customer impact.
Summary Generated by Built In
ABOUT RETOOL
Nearly every company in the world runs on custom software for critical operations like tracking performance metrics, handling support workflows, building admin dashboards, and countless processes you might never have thought of. But most companies don't have the resources to properly invest in these tools, leading to a lot of old, clunky internal software, or worse, teams still stuck in manual and spreadsheet workflows.
AI has changed who gets to build software. The definition of "developer" now includes analysts, operators, and domain experts creating solutions directly—and the tools they reach for are multiplying by the week. That's both an opportunity and a challenge: as more people build with more AI tools, the risk of shipping ungoverned software into production grows just as fast.
At Retool, we're building the platform that makes all of it safe to ship. Build with any AI tool you want, then deploy into one place that connects to your real business data, enforces enterprise policies automatically, and lets teams create once and reuse everywhere with shared, trusted components. The cost of building software has collapsed. The cost of governing it hasn't—and that's the problem we solve.
Developers and domain experts have already automated over 100 million hours of work on our platform, freeing them to focus on creative problem-solving and strategic work that drives real business value. The people closest to the problem can now build the software to solve it, safely, and within enterprise guardrails.
Let's build the future together.
WHY WE’RE LOOKING FOR YOU:
We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to lead Retool’s Automation team—the team building the next generation of workflows, integrations, and AI-driven agents. Your team will expand Retool beyond internal apps into end-to-end process orchestration, helping customers automate everything from backend operations to complex workflows across their businesses.
This work sits at the intersection of platform engineering, developer experience, and applied AI. As customers build increasingly powerful automated systems, they need ways to control when AI acts autonomously, keep humans in the loop, and understand what happens when something goes wrong. Your team will build the execution infrastructure and product experiences that make these systems useful, reliable, and trustworthy in production.
You’ll lead engineers through technically complex, open-ended problems, balancing rapid experimentation with the long-term architectural soundness of the platform. Working closely with Product, Design, and go-to-market partners, you’ll help set the team’s direction, make clear tradeoffs, and turn emerging customer needs into scalable automation capabilities. You’ll also build direct relationships with customers to understand their workflows, where they encounter friction, and what they need to automate more of their business.
At Retool, we emphasize the word “leader.” We’re looking for someone who takes ownership, gets decisions made, keeps the team’s energy and tempo up, and continuously improves the environment for our engineers. You’ll pair strong technical judgment with thoughtful people leadership, helping engineers grow while setting a high bar for execution, reliability, and customer impact.
IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL:
- Lead a fullstack team building Retool’s automation capabilities, including workflows, integrations, and AI-driven agents.
- Partner with Product and Design to define the team’s strategy and roadmap, connecting technical investments to customer needs and business impact.
- Guide technical design and architecture across workflow execution, state management, service integrations, observability, and system reliability.
- Help shape how AI agents operate in production, including autonomous execution, human oversight, debugging, and recovery when things go wrong.
- Drive execution from scoping through launch and iteration, making tradeoffs, resolving dependencies, and balancing experimentation with reliable delivery.
- Work directly with customers and go-to-market partners to understand complex business processes and translate them into reusable automation capabilities.
- Support engineers through continuous feedback, coaching, growth opportunities, and clear performance expectations.
- Build processes that improve delivery and cross-team collaboration, and partner with Recruiting to grow a diverse team of exceptional engineers.
THE SKILLSET YOU’LL BRING:
- 2+ years of experience successfully leading and managing engineering teams.
- Strong technical judgment; we don’t expect you to code regularly, but you should be able to navigate our codebase and engage deeply in design and architecture decisions.
- A track record of setting technical direction and delivering complex systems, ideally involving workflows, distributed systems, integrations, or developer-facing products.
- Strong product instincts: the ability to connect technical decisions to customer needs, shape priorities with Product, and identify capabilities that serve multiple use cases.
- A point of view on AI-driven automation and what it takes to make intelligent systems useful and dependable in production.
- Sound judgment when balancing delivery speed, system reliability, and long-term maintainability.
- Experience coaching engineers, managing performance, and recruiting and building strong teams.
- A propensity to operate as a business owner, caring deeply about our customers, product, and team.
- Comfort navigating ambiguity, making decisions with incomplete information, and holding yourself and others accountable.
- Clear, direct communication and the ability to partner effectively across engineering, product, design, and go-to-market teams.
For candidates based in the United States, the pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents base salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings (OTE) for commissionable roles. This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels at Retool and will be narrowed during the interview process based on a number of factors such as (but not limited to), scope and responsibilities, the candidate’s experience and qualifications, and location.
Additional compensation in the form(s) of equity and/or commission are dependent on the position offered. Retool provides a comprehensive benefit plan, including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k). Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.
The base pay range for this role is $260,000 – $360,000 per year.
Retool offers generous benefits to all employees and hybrid work location. For more information, please visit the benefits and perks section of our careers page!
Retool is currently set up to employ all roles in the US and specific roles in the UK. To find roles that can be employed in the UK, please refer to our careers page and review the indicated locations.
Skills Required
- 2+ years of experience successfully leading and managing engineering teams
- Strong technical judgment and ability to navigate a codebase and engage in design and architecture decisions
- Track record of setting technical direction and delivering complex systems
- Experience with workflows, distributed systems, integrations, or developer-facing products
- Strong product instincts and ability to connect technical decisions to customer needs
- Point of view on AI-driven automation and dependable intelligent systems in production
- Judgment balancing delivery speed, system reliability, and long-term maintainability
- Experience coaching engineers, managing performance, recruiting, and building strong teams
- Ability to operate as a business owner with strong customer, product, and team orientation
- Comfort navigating ambiguity and making decisions with incomplete information
- Clear, direct communication and effective cross-functional partnership
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The Company
What We Do
Retool is a development platform for building business software. Users can visually design apps that interface with any database or API, and switch to code to customize how their apps look and work. With Retool, developers ship more apps and move their business forward—all in less time. Thousands of teams at companies like Amazon, DoorDash, Peloton, and Brex collaborate around custom-built Retool apps to solve internal workflows. We're just getting started and growing quickly—join us!
Why Work With Us
Retools are solution drivers—whether fixing a button misalignment or enabling customers to build with the newest AI technologies, we wear many hats and act like owners. Our small teams work on big problems, pushing hard and moving quickly to create outsized impact. We hold each other accountable and celebrate together when we get it right. Join us!
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