Engineering Manager
Our engineering team ensures Code and Theory delivers innovative, immersive web experiences that delight our clients and their customers. We are always striving to balance the demanding nature of working on cutting-edge technologies with the real-world demands of high performance, high security, and accessibility. Working in collaboration with our multi-disciplinary engineering, design, and quality assurance teams, you will build software that solves real-world problems for incredible clients. React is our most frequently implemented frontend framework and we have built up substantial skill in implementing React and its ecosystem of technologies.
Our Engineering Managers partner with our cross-functional teams to identify and implement innovative technologies that enhance customer experiences and drive business growth.
WHAT YOU’LL DO:
- Lead and grow a high-performing team of engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, innovation, continuous learning, and engineering excellence.
- Drive the delivery of scalable, secure, and maintainable products while balancing technical quality, business impact, and speed of execution.
- Actively participate in architecture, system design, code reviews, and critical technical decision-making, serving as a technical leader for the team.
- Hands on coding as part of the client projects in multiple technologies.
- Champion AI-enabled software development practices, leveraging tools such as Claude, Cursor, and Vercel/V0 to improve productivity, quality, and developer experience.
- Continuously evaluate and introduce modern engineering practices, tools, automations, and workflows that enhance team effectiveness and accelerate delivery.
- Mentor and coach engineers through hands-on guidance, technical leadership, and career development, helping them grow their technical and problem-solving capabilities.
- Partner closely with Product, Design, Architecture, and other cross-functional stakeholders to align engineering efforts with strategic business outcomes.
- Build and scale engineering teams through hiring, performance management, and fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and high-accountability culture.
- Establish and uphold engineering standards around architecture, testing, CI/CD, observability, security, and operational excellence.
- Represent the engineering team with senior leadership, customers, and partners, effectively communicating technical strategy, progress, risks, and opportunities.
Required Experience & Skills:
- Total 12–15 years of IT experience, including a minimum of 5+ years in an Engineering Management role, with a proven track record of success as a Lead/Senior Engineer prior to that.
- Deep expertise in ReactJS, NextJS, TypeScript, JavaScript, NodeJS, Design Systems, HTML/CSS, Storybook, and Tailwind CSS.
- Mandatory current experience in hands-on coding in the above technologies and beyond.
- Strong experience working with Headless CMS platforms such as Contentful or Sanity.
- Experience deploying and operating applications on platforms such as Vercel.
- Hands-on experience in system design and architecture, including leading technical discussions, evaluating trade-offs, and making informed architectural decisions.
- Experience working in modern product engineering environments, embracing iterative delivery, continuous experimentation, rapid feedback loops, and outcome-driven execution.
AI-Enabled Engineering Leadership (Mandatory)
- Demonstrated expertise in AI-assisted software development is mandatory.
- Extensive hands-on experience using AI engineering tools such as Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or equivalent platforms to accelerate software delivery, architecture design, debugging, code reviews, testing, documentation, and developer productivity.
- Hands-on experience developing agents, sub-agents, workflow orchestration and automation with agents.
- Proven ability to effectively integrate Agentic Engineering into day-to-day engineering workflows and establish best practices for AI-enhanced processes across teams.
- Experience evaluating, adopting, and driving emerging AI technologies and engineering practices within an organization.
- Ability to mentor engineers on AI-native development approaches and foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation.
- Candidates should be comfortable demonstrating practical AI-assisted problem-solving skills during the interview process through live coding, design, and development exercises.
Leadership & Innovation (Mandatory)
- Demonstrated past experience in directly managing teams of engineers, and strong people management skills, including performance reviews, compensation management.
- Strong communicator capable of representing engineering teams to internal and external stakeholders with varying levels of technical expertise.
- Passion for challenging conventional approaches and driving adoption of new tools, workflows, and engineering practices that improve outcomes.
- Ability to build high-performing teams by fostering innovation, experimentation, ownership, and accountability.
Engineering Excellence (Mandatory)
- Experience with automated testing strategies, including unit, integration, functional, and end-to-end testing.
- Proven ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, and cross-functional initiatives in a fast-paced environment.
- Strong problem-solving, debugging, performance optimization, and decision-making skills.
- Demonstrated ability to continuously improve engineering quality, delivery velocity, developer experience, and operational efficiency.
- Experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and modern software delivery practices.
- Active involvement in system design, architecture reviews, coding, code reviews, release management, and operational excellence.
- Experience establishing engineering standards, development workflows, and best practices that improve team effectiveness and software quality.
- Flexible, adaptable, and able to thrive in rapidly evolving technology environments.
NICE TO HAVE:
- Experience designing, deploying, and operating cloud-native applications on platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
- Familiarity with modern engineering productivity, collaboration, and delivery platforms such as Jira, Linear, DevOps, or similar tools.
- Experience leading distributed teams and collaborating effectively with stakeholders across global regions, particularly North America.
- Experience driving platform modernization, developer experience improvements, or large-scale digital transformation initiatives.
ABOUT US
Born in 2001, Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that sits at the center of creativity and technology. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients. With a global client roster of Fortune 100s and start-ups alike, we crave the hardest problems to solve. With a remote-first approach to our people, we have teams distributed across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle, Instrument, Left Field Labs, Mediacurrent, Rhythm, and TrueLogic.
Striving never to be pigeonholed, we work across every major category: from tech to CPG, financial services to travel & hospitality, government and education to media and publishing. We value the collaboration with our client partners, including but not limited to Adidas, Amazon, Con Edison, Diageo, EY, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lenovo, Marriott, Mars, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, and TikTok.
The Code and Theory network comprises nearly 2,000 people with 50% engineers and 50% creative talent. We’re always on the lookout for smart, driven, and forward-thinking people to join our team.
Skills Required
- 12-15 years of IT experience with minimum 5+ years in an engineering management role
- Expertise in ReactJS and JavaScript
- Hands-on experience with NodeJS
- Experience with Radix UI or Material Design and Design Systems
- Proficiency in HTML and CSS
- Experience using Storybook
- Experience with Tailwind CSS
- Strong experience with headless CMS platforms (Contentful, Sanity)
- Hands-on system design and architecture experience
- Practical understanding of MVVM, MVP, MVC patterns
- 4+ years working in Agile teams (Scrum/Kanban)
- Proven experience writing and maintaining unit and functional tests and managing CI/CD pipelines
- Strong debugging, performance optimization, and problem-solving skills
- Compelling communication skills for technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Proven ability to manage multiple projects and set performance expectations
- Experience participating in hiring and building diverse teams
- Flexibility to work in a dynamic environment and motivate teams
- Familiarity with NextJS and TypeScript
- Proficiency with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and cloud-native apps
- Experience with project management and QA tools like JIRA and QTest
- Experience working with US-based colleagues or distributed/global teams
Code and Theory Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Code and Theory and has not been reviewed or approved by Code and Theory.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off policies include an “unlimited”/flexible PTO approach with paid holidays/sick time and seasonal early-close Fridays, offering notable flexibility. These options provide additional downtime beyond standard accrual models.
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Healthcare Strength — Core medical, dental, and vision coverage is part of the standard package, with employer-verified health plan information cited as current. Life and disability insurance further reinforce foundational coverage.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with employer match is included in the package, supporting long-term savings. Candidates are encouraged to confirm the match formula during the offer stage.
Code and Theory Insights
What We Do
Code and Theory is a strategically driven, digital-first creative agency that lives at the intersection of creativity and technology. We solve consumer and business problems across the entire customer journey that flex to meet the ever-changing needs of consumer expectations. We put the user, their behaviors and needs, at the center of everything we do — from our proprietary research methodologies, to product development processes, to how we create brand, channel and messaging strategies. Our goal is simple: to solve our clients business problems. We bring big ideas to life by looking holistically at brand ecosystems where digital plays a prominent role in driving the consumer from first-touch through to conversion to relationship deepening over time. We identify gaps in the consumer journey and opportunities in culture that require products, services or communications to fill. We work across categories, ranging as far and wide as health care (Pfizer, Sanofi, Reach MD, Bioreference Laboratories) to financial services (JP Morgan Chase, Prudential, Morgan Stanley, First Data) to cpg (Mars, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson) to technology companies (Facebook, Xerox, Samsung, Comcast) to culture brands (adidas, H&M). And because our DNA is in publishing — we’ve embedded in over 135 newsrooms in the past decade — we bring unique expertise in understanding how content is created, distributed and optimized, including our work with CNN, NBC News, NBC Sports, and Bustle Digital Group. At Code and Theory, we strive to only be limited by our own ambition and creativity. We believe in pushing our creativity beyond the easy and obvious answers in order to deliver the solutions that are right for our clients, their businesses, and their consumers.
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