Senior Engineering Manager, Messaging Platforms

About the Role:

We are at an inflection point. As we evolve our messaging strategy, this team will lead the expansion into new channels like WhatsApp and SMS. As a Senior EM, you won't just manage a stable platform; you will design the team and the technology required to reach our audience wherever they are. You will oversee a diverse technical stack ranging from low-latency backend integrations to the user-facing tools that make our messaging platform powerful and intuitive.

You will join an organization that values empathy, collaboration, transparency, and diversity.

Responsibilities:

• Design Multi-Channel Growth: Guide the technical vision and roadmap for expanding our capabilities beyond native push into WhatsApp, SMS, or other emerging messaging channels.


• High-Stakes Delivery: Ensure the reliability and sub-second delivery of push notifications.


• Strategic Partnership: Partner with Product, Design, and Data counterparts to prioritize investments that balance immediate operational needs with long-term platform modernization.


• Group Leadership: Contribute to the broader Messaging Platforms group by leading cross-team technical or cultural programs alongside the Group EM cadre.


• Champion Excellence: Represent the team in high-level technical discussions, identifying risks and making calculated tradeoffs between feature velocity and platform stability.


• Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world.


• You will report to the Director of Engineering for Messaging Platforms.

Basic Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager, with a proven track record of managing high-functioning teams.


• Full-Stack Leadership for High-Availability Systems: Experience managing cross-disciplinary engineers (Frontend, Backend, DevOps) and overseeing mission-critical production operations.


• Demonstrated experience in driving transformation, leading teams through changes in technical strategy, organizational structure, or product direction.


• Strong People Development Skills: A history of coaching, mentoring, and growing the careers of engineers at various levels.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience transitioning a team to an Agentic AI workflow, leveraging AI agents or LLM-based automation to enhance engineering productivity or system capabilities.


• Messaging Domain Expertise: Experience with push notification services (APNs, FCM), SMS gateways, or messaging APIs (e.g., WhatsApp Business API, Twilio).


• Modern Web Stack: Experience with React, Node.js, or similar frameworks used to build consumer-grade tooling and management consoles.


• Cloud Proficiency: Fluency in cloud deployments (AWS preferred), including serverless (Lambda), event-driven architectures, and observability.

This role may require limited on-call hours. An on-call schedule will be determined when you join, taking into account team size and other variables.

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REQ-019924