Software Engineering Manager, Substack

App Team

$195-225k

Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

React

JavaScript

Postgres

Senior level

San Francisco Bay Area

Platform for writers & podcasters

Job no longer available

Platform for writers & podcasters

1001+ employees

B2CPublishingDigital Media

Job no longer available

$195-225k

Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

React

JavaScript

Postgres

Senior level

San Francisco Bay Area

1001+ employees

B2CPublishingDigital Media

Company mission

To give thinkers, writers, and creatives the opportunity to pursue their curiosity and make money at the same time.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

At least 3+ years of software engineering management experience
Passion for recruiting and building healthy, diverse teams
Experience in building social and/or media networks
Can contribute across the full web stack, but may have a deeper passion for certain technologies and systems
Independent and autonomous. We’re too small to micromanage, and expect that every person at the company owns their work and can be a leader
Hold yourself and others to a high standard when working on production systems
Take pride in building elegant and delightful product experiences. Substack works best when it gets out of the way so writers can focus on writing and connecting with their readers
Enjoy collaboration with a diverse group of thinkers while bringing our own unique experience and background to the team
Believe in Substack’s mission to build a better business model for writing

What the job involves

Lead the team that develops Substack apps for readers and writers
Engage in strategic product vision and direction-setting with your team, peers, and company leadership
Scale systems to handle ever-increasing load and a fast-growing ecosystem of writers and readers
Contribute to the whole product process in collaboration with designers, writers, support staff, and many others. From product concept and research to implementation and deployment, we expect you to own your work and deliver high-quality solutions
Work directly with customers to solve their problems. The entire company (CEO included) participates in customer support in order to drive empathy for our users and help us build better products
Partner with product and engineering leaders across the organization on team-wide initiatives and strategy
Collaborate with Substack’s recruiting team to hire and retain great engineers
We work with JavaScript, especially Node/Express and React, and Postgres. It’s helpful if you know these technologies already, if not, we’ll be excited to help you learn

Our take

Substack is an online platform for journalists and writers to manage subscription-based newsletters. Substack has attracted a range of writers and publishers who wish to connect with their audiences while being removed from social media and other ad-based models.

For an industry that has seen a steady decline in its fortunes since the rise of digital, Substack offers journalism an alternative to the advertising-driven clickbait-focused model that has dominated the last decade. Substack has amassed more than 35 million subscribers.

The subscription newsletter space is a competitive market, but Substack claims to provide greater freedom to writers than its competitors. Writers produce their newsletters on the site for free, charging an optional subscription fee (minimum of $5/month) of which Substack takes 10%. The company continues to seek out ways to diversify its offerings, whilst securing funding rounds to expand its reach.

Steph

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Insights

Top investors

62% employee growth in 12 months

Glassdoor (4.8)

Trustpilot (1.3)

Company

Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)

Jul 2025

$100m

SERIES C

Nov 2024

$10m

ANGEL

Total funding: $200.3m

Company benefits

Remote work support - All employees receive a generous allowance to customize their home offices
Comprehensive health care - Substack covers 100% of premiums for employees and their dependents, and fully funds HRA plans
Parental leave - We want employees to be fully present for the new members of their family, so we offer generous parental leave
Flexible vacation and paid time off - You’re the best person to decide when you need a day—or a week—off to travel or decompress. Our flexible vacation policy puts you in control
Company holidays and Winter shutdown - In addition to flexible time off, we honor 12 paid holidays annually on average. And we close the office between Christmas Eve and New Year's day to recharge each year
Phone & internet stipends - Many of our employees work from home or on the go. So we offer full time employees a monthly stipend to cover for phone and internet costs

Company HQ

The East Cut, San Francisco, CA

Leadership

Chris Best

(CEO & Co-Founder)

After several software internships, they co-founded Kik Interactive in 2009, serving as CTO until 2017. At this stage, they founded Substack, and have served as CEO ever since.

Hamish McKenzie

(Chief Writing Officer & Co-Founder)

Previously a journalist for several publications include The Independent and Time Out. Lead Writer for Tesla and Editorial Advisor to Kik Interactive.

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