Capture & Harvesting Engineer Manager

Samba is a media intelligence company. We know what the world is watching, reading, and thinking about — in real time, at scale, across every screen. Our data exists with the consent of over a billion people, organized into the most complete picture of consumer attention ever built. The biggest brands in the world use that picture to make smarter decisions. We think it’s the most interesting data asset on the planet, because it’s the most culturally relevant.

Our data enables media companies to connect with audiences for new shows and movies, and empowers advertisers to engage viewers and measure reach. Capture & Harvesting is part of the Core division that fuels every Samba product, enabling the generation of OTT, Linear TV, and Ad viewership data that downstream teams use to build audience products, data licensing, and measurement reports.
We are seeking a Engineering Manager to join our core team, responsible for our core ingestion systems. You’ll be working across complex, large-scale distributed architectures that process and analyze audio/video signals from hundreds of global channels and streaming platforms to derive valuable insights.

What you'd actually do

• Manage a team of remote engineers, providing hands-on technical guidance, reviewing system designs, and answering technical questions while planning for future team growth.
• Mentor engineers directly, unblock design decisions, resolve technical disagreements before they become team friction, and represent Capture & Harvesting in cross-team collaboration, Product decisions, and roadmap definitions.
• 60% hands-on, 40% management: Review system designs and team PRs while maintaining a high quality bar. Help the team make technical decisions and unblock team members when stuck.
• Establish clear goals, team rituals, and execution cadences to ensure alignment, accountability, and high-quality delivery.

What you need to already be good at

• Hands-on engineering management experience leading a team of roughly 3-10 engineers, not just senior IC work
• Designing, optimizing, and maintaining scalable and resilient distributed systems, while keeping high SLA standards
• Technical enough to be dangerous: you can review a system design, catch what's wrong with it, and make the call yourself when someone's stuck - not escalate it
• Comfortable mentoring engineers directly and handling technical conflict without it becoming a people problem

Bonus points

Audio/video processing · ad-tech data · high-volume streaming · content-fingerprinting systems · applied AI/ML in production · Python or React

Not for you if

• You want to just run standups and stay out of the technical weeds
• You are looking for a fully remote position (this role follows an office-first hybrid schedule in Warsaw)
• You prefer a greenfield project built from scratch rather than evolving mature, production-proven systems

How we judge you, and how it goes

Skills we teach, attitude we don't.

Every hire is scored on the same five things: (1) determined yet resilient, (2) naturally curious, (3) low-ego, (4) self-aware, (5) results-first.

We're watching for hands-on technical depth, real design-review judgment, mentorship instincts, and how you handle a cross-team disagreement.

Why now

We're Series D, ~$100M raised, pre-IPO, growing 30% YoY, 18 years in - nobody else has data like this. As we expand globally and scale our data footprint, this role presents an exciting opportunity to lead a foundational core engineering team.

Samba is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We strive to empower connection with one another, reflect the communities we serve, and tackle meaningful projects that make a real impact.

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