Engineering Manager

Company Description

Swiftly is on a mission to help cities move more efficiently. We are the leading transit data platform for agencies to share real-time passenger information, manage day-to-day operations, and improve service performance. Today, over 200 transit agencies in 12 countries – including LA Metro, MARTA, SEPTA, and MBTA – rely on Swiftly to improve on-time performance by up to 40% and increase passenger information accuracy by up to 50%. The result is better service reliability, increased ridership, and more efficient transit operations.

Even though Swiftly's HQ office is located in San Francisco, CA, we are open to candidates in most locations across the U.S. as well as Ontario and British Columbia, Canada. At this time we are unable to provide Visa sponsorship.

Engineering at Swiftly

Engineering at Swiftly is not only about writing code – we believe in creating empowered product teams that work together to conceptualize new features and bring them to life. Each team aims to strike a balance between delivering incremental improvements, creating prototypes to test new ideas and mitigate risks, and building scalable software using industry best practices. We’re guided by a mission to positively impact transit riders, and we embrace humility and intentionality in how we make technical decisions so that we best meet our customers’ needs.

The Role

Swiftly is looking for an Engineering Manager to join a cross-functional product team enabling our transit agency customers to operate and manage on-vehicle hardware systems and devices. Your team's work spans technology stacks connecting cloud-native services interfacing with Swiftly's core data engine to a variety of embedded and IoT devices running onboard public transit buses, trains, and ferries.

We seek Engineering Managers who are curious about problems to solve and orient toward impact by being flexible in their specific contributions to help their team succeed. You will be responsible for growing and supporting a high-performing team, ensuring engineers have the context, support, and technical direction they need to do their best work. You will drive delivery of products across the full vertical, from software running on edge devices in the field, to the communication layers that connect those devices to the cloud, to backend services that configure, control, and process data from those devices. You should bring deep familiarity with real-time data systems, consumer or commercial devices, and hardware and software integrations, enough to guide architectural decisions, mentor engineers, and engage credibly in technical discussions.

We encourage you to apply if you meet half or more of the requirements and are excited to learn about the rest. Above all else, we value candidates with a growth mindset, the aptitude to learn, and strong motivation to deliver impact to customers. If this is exciting to you, we'd love to talk.

What You'll Do

• Product delivery. Partner with the team's engineers and product manager to understand customer needs, define impactful solutions, set milestones and goals, and deliver valuable products to market.
• Technical mentorship. Contribute to our products hands-on and as a technical mentor and partner.
• Delivery and quality. Guide the team to balance technical excellence with rapid delivery, evolving practices as products scale.
• Hardware lab. Maintain and improve our physical hardware lab if local to San Francisco, or contribute to solutions for remote development, testing, and debugging needs.
• AI tooling. Stay apprised of developments in AI tooling, capturing improvements that drive efficiency and effectiveness of the team as product development evolves.
• Alignment. Proactively seek feedback and share progress, learnings, and blockers to drive alignment cross-functionally.
• Architecture. Help define and refine our onboard architecture and implementation processes, including through observational customer site visits and collaboration with partners.
• People management. Manage team members with a focus on enabling a supportive, inclusive, growth-oriented, and outcome-focused culture on the team.
• Team experience. Create an environment where your direct reports are proud to work at Swiftly, as measured by employee retention and employee satisfaction scores.

What Will Set You Up for Success

• 3+ years of experience in engineering team leadership and people management, with a track record of developing engineers and building high-performing teams while remaining hands-on with technical contributions.
• Proven experience guiding teams toward outcomes and delivering end-to-end products spanning cloud-based SaaS environments and embedded hardware in the field.
• Strong ability to support team execution by clarifying goals, breaking down work effectively, and managing competing priorities across multiple product surfaces.
• Proficiency with languages and technologies in our stack: Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, MQTT, and SQL databases.
• Experience with communication protocols and paradigms of multiple varieties: serial interfaces (RS-232, J1708, CAN), network protocols (HTTP/REST, UDP vs. TCP), and messaging patterns (MQTT, pub/sub, store-and-forward).
• Fluency with Linux, including imaging, system administration, containerization, process management, networking, and security.
• Familiarity with approaches to remote deployment and update mechanisms, such as OTA updates, A/B partitioning, configuration management, and edge container orchestration.
• A testing and quality mindset, with strong opinions on system validation, automated testing, observability, and monitoring.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures and services, AWS preferred.
• Comfortable applying modern AI tools and techniques in the software development lifecycle to accelerate development.
• You seek and internalize feedback, a core Swiftly value, and are humble in technical debate and committed to blameless learning and improvement.
• You are excited to be part of a mission-driven company improving public transit. Regardless of your why, it is important that you care about the work we do

Pay Range

In accordance with pay transparency laws, please see the approximate salary ranges below. These ranges represents the anticipated low and high end of the salary and any on-target earnings (if applicable) for this position. Actual salaries will vary and are based on a multitude of non-discriminatory factors including final role leveling decisions, a candidate’s relevant work experiences/skills, and geographic location. Salary is one component of Swiftly’s total compensation package, which also includes stock options, competitive benefits, 401(k)/ RRSP matching, a fantastic team and culture, opportunity to have a huge impact, emphasis on professional growth and holistic wellness, and other perks.

US Salary Range: $155,000 - $240,000 USD

Canadian Salary Range: $200,000 - $251,000 CAD

Beyond the Skills

We are looking for candidates who are passionate about mobility, sustainability, or mission-oriented projects that have a significant real-world impact. Ideal candidates encompass the core values of our company:

• Team. Together, we are more effective and better supported

• Impact. Drive impact for our customers, our company, and all of our teams

• Diversity. See differing perspectives as ways to address our weaknesses and find new strengths

• Communication. Assume others internally and externally have good intentions

• Feedback. We share feedback because we want each other to grow professionally and personally

• Growth. Foster personal, professional, and company growth

Benefits:

• Competitive salary

• Equity compensation (company ownership) for every employee

• Medical, Dental and Vision

• Retirement with Employer Match

• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

• Home office setup reimbursement

• Monthly cell/internet reimbursement

• Monthly "Be Well" stipend

• Flexible PTO with a recommended minimum

• Flexible work environment

• 16 paid holidays - including months without US national holidays

• 12 fully paid weeks of leave for child birth/adoption

Travel note: Swiftly employees can generally expect to travel 1–2 times a year for in-person company or team offsites. As a fully distributed company, we consider these offsites important for cultivating strong relationships across our teams! Attending these in-person is expected and encouraged, although we understand everyone has different personal circumstances and we will consider requests for exceptions. Customer-facing team members and other specific roles may be expected to travel more frequently.

We are an equal opportunity employer - we are committed to a workplace that is as dynamic, diverse, and passionate as the communities we serve.