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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Engineering Delivery Manager

💰 $140,000 - $195,000

Engineering ManagementProject ManagementTechnologySoftware Development

🎯 Role Definition

As an Engineering Delivery Manager, you are the driving force behind our engineering team's success. You are a servant leader, a strategic planner, and a master of execution, responsible for the end-to-end delivery of complex software projects. You will cultivate a high-performance culture, mentor engineers, refine our development processes, and work collaboratively with product, design, and business stakeholders to turn ambitious goals into tangible, high-quality software. Your mission is to unblock your teams, manage risks, and ensure we are building the right things, the right way, to deliver exceptional value to our customers.


📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Software Engineer / Staff Engineer
  • Technical Project Manager
  • Scrum Master / Agile Coach

Advancement To:

  • Senior Engineering Manager
  • Director of Engineering
  • Head of Delivery

Lateral Moves:

  • Senior Product Manager
  • Solutions Architect
  • Senior Program Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead, manage, and mentor a cross-functional team of software engineers, fostering their professional growth and ensuring high levels of team engagement and performance.
  • Drive the end-to-end delivery of complex, large-scale software projects from ideation and planning through to deployment and post-launch support.
  • Partner closely with Product Managers, UX/UI Designers, and other business stakeholders to define project scope, requirements, and success criteria.
  • Implement, champion, and continuously refine Agile/Scrum methodologies to optimize team velocity, predictability, and the quality of deliverables.
  • Proactively identify, track, and mitigate risks, dependencies, and impediments that could impact project timelines, budget, or quality.
  • Own the complete software development lifecycle (SDLC), ensuring adherence to engineering best practices for code quality, testing, and security.
  • Facilitate effective cross-team communication and collaboration, ensuring alignment and transparency across multiple engineering and product teams.
  • Develop and maintain comprehensive project plans, technical roadmaps, and release schedules in alignment with product and business objectives.
  • Manage stakeholder expectations by providing clear, consistent, and transparent communication on project status, progress, and risks.
  • Track, analyze, and report on key delivery metrics and engineering KPIs (e.g., cycle time, lead time, deployment frequency, change-fail rate) to drive continuous improvement.
  • Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous learning, encouraging the team to experiment and learn from both successes and failures.
  • Conduct regular performance reviews, provide constructive feedback, and create development plans to support the career progression of your team members.
  • Oversee the release management process, ensuring smooth and reliable deployments into production environments with minimal user impact.
  • Mediate conflicts and navigate complex team dynamics to maintain a positive, healthy, and highly collaborative work environment.
  • Translate ambiguous business requirements into clear, actionable technical tasks and well-defined user stories for the engineering backlog.
  • Lead incident response and post-mortem analysis for production issues, ensuring root causes are identified and permanent solutions are implemented.
  • Manage resource allocation and capacity planning to ensure teams are properly staffed to meet strategic commitments.
  • Champion technical excellence by driving initiatives around architectural improvements, technical debt reduction, and adoption of modern technologies.
  • Build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships with leaders across the organization to ensure strategic alignment and efficient execution.
  • Act as the key point of contact for all matters related to the delivery of your team's projects, serving as the bridge between the technical team and the rest of the business.

Secondary Functions

  • Champion and contribute to the evolution of our internal engineering standards, documentation, and development best practices.
  • Participate actively in the recruitment, interviewing, and onboarding process to attract and retain top engineering talent.
  • Manage relationships with third-party vendors and technology partners to ensure seamless integration, support, and value.
  • Facilitate technical deep-dives and architectural review sessions to ensure the team is building robust, scalable, and maintainable solutions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Agile Methodologies: Deep expertise in Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFE) to guide team processes and drive iterative development.
  • Project Management Software: Proficiency with tools like Jira, Confluence, Asana, or similar platforms for backlog management, progress tracking, and documentation.
  • SDLC Management: Comprehensive understanding of the entire software development lifecycle, from concept to code, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
  • CI/CD & DevOps: Strong knowledge of continuous integration/continuous delivery pipelines and DevOps principles to enable rapid and reliable software releases.
  • Cloud Platforms: Familiarity with major cloud service providers (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and their core services.
  • Technical Acumen: Ability to understand complex technical concepts, software architecture, and system design to engage in meaningful discussions with engineers.
  • Risk Management: Proven ability to identify, assess, and develop mitigation strategies for project and technical risks.
  • Metrics and KPIs: Experience with defining and tracking key performance indicators (e.g., DORA metrics) to measure and improve team performance.

Soft Skills

  • Servant Leadership: A natural inclination to lead by empowering, unblocking, and serving the needs of your team.
  • Exceptional Communication: The ability to articulate complex technical and project information clearly and concisely to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Stakeholder Management: Adept at building relationships, managing expectations, and influencing stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
  • Conflict Resolution: Skillful in navigating disagreements and facilitating constructive conversations to reach a positive resolution.
  • Strategic Thinking: The capacity to see the bigger picture, align team efforts with business goals, and anticipate future challenges and opportunities.
  • Problem-Solving: A proactive and analytical approach to identifying problems, evaluating solutions, and making decisive, well-reasoned decisions.
  • Adaptability: Thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and can effectively manage changing priorities and ambiguity.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's Degree or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's Degree or relevant industry certifications (e.g., PMP, CSM, SAFe).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Business Administration

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 8-12+ years of experience in the technology sector.

Preferred:

  • A minimum of 3 years in a direct people management or team leadership role within an engineering organization.
  • At least 5 years of hands-on experience in software development, technical project management, or a related role.
  • Demonstrated success in delivering multiple complex, cross-functional software projects from start to finish.