Engineering Manager, Aiven
Observability
+ Equity
AI-ready open source data platform
Open for applications
AI-ready open source data platform
201-500 employees
Open for applications
+ Equity
201-500 employees
Company mission
To help customers create outcomes and accelerate building applications.
Role
Who you are
- Our engineering managers have a hands-on programming background, and we expect them to have a meaningful say in technical conversations
- While we typically look for at least five years of hands-on experience and two years in a people leadership role, your accomplishments matter more than years on a resume
- Whether you’re a manager with a strong technical core, or a staff engineer looking to dive deeper into people leadership, we want to hear about the products you've shipped, the impact they had, and what you learned along the way
- People Leadership: A proven track record of leading diverse teams, from junior to senior engineers, to successfully deliver software products
- Product Thinking: A strong product sense that enables your team to design innovative, cloud-native products that stay ahead of the curve
- Communication: Excellent communication skills in English, with the ability to effectively engage directly with customers
- Adaptability: The ability to bring order and clarity to a dynamic, ambiguous environment, a trait essential in a fast-growing tech company
- Team Building: Experience in recruiting engineering talent and a deep understanding of what it takes to build and retain high-performing teams
- Agile Expertise: Experience with agile software development methodologies
- Observability: Extensive experience with observability concepts on a big scale. You have an understanding of SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs
- Database Concepts:Strong knowledge of database fundamentals, including OLAP vs. OLTP, persistence, replication, and clustering. Experience with ClickHouse specifically regarding logs, metrics, and OpenTelemetry is highly desirable
- Distributed Systems: Experience in building and designing distributed systems in a cloud environment
- Observability: A good grasp of monitoring and observability tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry
- SQL Proficiency: The ability to work with SQL to interact with our platform's master database
- Release & Quality: Deep understanding of release management and testing best practices to own the delivery pipeline
- Problem-Solving: A genuine interest in solving complex technical challenges with customer-focused solutions
What the job involves
- We are looking for a skilled Engineering Manager to lead our Observability team. This is a critical role focused on providing observability solutions for all customers
- You will report to the Head of Platform, working closely with your engineering team and product manager to drive revenue through three core responsibilities:
- Operational Excellence: Ensure our existing observability offering is up and running all the time
- Customer Satisfaction: Support our existing external customer base by resolving escalated support issues and collaborating with them to understand and solve their needs
- Product Differentiation: Ideate and develop innovative new features that attract our target customer segment, drive product engagement, and ultimately fuel growth
- Strategic Planning: Partner with the Product Manager and Domain Head to create the team's roadmap, balancing business growth with essential engineering initiatives. Ability to identify technical debt, and balance innovation with stability is vital
- Project Management: Oversee the team's backlog and projects, providing clear, timely, and actionable updates to stakeholders on progress and potential blockers
- Leadership & Delivery: Champion a culture of urgency and ownership to deliver impactful results. You'll be accountable for the team's delivery in all aspects, including quality, security, and reliability
- Team Enablement: Empower your team to act as "product custodians" by consistently addressing foundational and production issues
- Performance & Development: Provide clear goals and feedback to manage expectations and drive both individual and team performance
- Team Facilitation: Lead team meetings, such as planning sessions and retrospectives, to continuously improve workflows and delivery
- Culture Building: Foster a psychologically safe, high-trust environment where curiosity and healthy debate are encouraged
- Collaboration: Ensure effective communication and collaboration both within the team and across the wider organization
Our take
The cloud infrastructure sector is booming as more businesses rely on open-source technologies to run their operations at scale. In this fast-growing space, Finnish company Aiven has carved out a strong reputation since founding in 2016. The company provides fully managed cloud services, helping organizations to use open-source tools without the hassle of managing the technical details.
The company works with a wide range of clients around the world, offering services that cover everything from databases to messaging systems and analytics tools. So, Aiven is helping businesses streamline their cloud operations and focus on growth instead of infrastructure headaches. I doing so, it makes complex technology accessible, reliable and scalable for teams of all sizes.
In 2025, Aiven announced it had surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, a signal of its growing impact in the cloud space. To support its next phase of growth, the company is opening a hub in Cork, Ireland, creating a bunch of new jobs over three years. This expansion puts AIven in a prime position to scale internationally and bring its managed open-source solutions to more companies.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
6% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
May 2022
$210m
SERIES D
Oct 2021
$60m
SERIES C
Total funding: $420m
Company benefits
- Stocks: Stock options for permanent employees
- Learning & growth: Get ahead with an individual learning budget, access to a web learning platform, coaching, and the ever-growing Aiven library
- Work/life balance: Flexible, regular working hours, and hybrid work friendly
- Health care: Private health and dental care
- Work equipment: The tools you need to do your job
- Cool, collaborative work spaces: with free drinks, treats and fruit
Company HQ
Kamppi, Helsinki
Leadership
Oskari Saarenmaa
(Co-Founder & CEO)Senior Software Engineer and Software Architect for F-Secure Corporation from 2002 to 2011. CEO and Software Architect of Ohmu from 2010 to 2016.
Heikki Nousiainen
(Co-Founder)Experience as Information Security Specialist for TietoEnator. Lead Software Architect for F-Secure Corporation from 2008 to 2015.
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