Software Engineering Manager San Francisco, CA

About the role

Amplitude is the leading AI analytics platform, helping over 4,700 customers build better products and digital experiences. The Query team processes trillions of events in real time, powering decisions for thousands of product teams worldwide.

Responsibilities

• Set the direction for the Query platform — define the roadmap, make priorities explicit, and align engineering, product, and cross-functional partners behind a clear plan.
• Lead and grow a team of ~10 engineers, partnering with your tech lead to define Nova's technical direction while coaching, developing, and scaling the team through hiring and performance feedback.
• Drive platform evolution across the query engine’s core layers — storage, compute and query execution — to define Amplitude’s next generation of analytics.
• Guide the design and operation of large-scale distributed systems, including load management, fault tolerance, capacity planning, and on-call practices. You own the SLOs and cost efficiency.
• Report to the Director of Data and partner across Product, Data Warehouse, Data Pipeline, Middleware, AI, and Support to co-define Amplitude's data strategy and shape how customers query and explore their data.
• Engage directly on major customer onboardings and escalations, turning customer learnings into durable platform improvements.

Requirements

• 2+ years leading engineers (people management and/or tech lead) and 6+ years building backend or infrastructure systems.
• Hands-on experience with distributed data systems — OLAP databases, data warehouses, stream processing, or large-scale storage — and modern cloud infrastructure (AWS S3, DynamoDB, Kafka, Redis/ElastiCache, Kubernetes, Terraform).
• A track record of meaningfully improving reliability, latency, or cost efficiency for a production system with clear SLOs and incident accountability.
• Strong communication skills and experience partnering with Product and cross-functional stakeholders to define roadmaps and measurable outcomes.

Qualifications

• Experience with query engines, distributed systems, and product impact.
• Technical leadership and hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure.
• Proven ability to improve reliability, latency, or cost efficiency for production systems.
• Effective communication and collaboration skills with cross-functional teams.

Skills

• Technical leadership and hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with query engines, distributed systems, and product impact.
• Proven ability to improve reliability, latency, or cost efficiency for production systems.
• Effective communication and collaboration skills with cross-functional teams.

Benefits

• Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision insurance coverages, with 100% employer-paid premiums for employee Medical, Dental, Vision on select plans.
• Flexible time off, paid holidays, and more.
• Generous stipends to spend on what matters most to you, whether that’s wellness, commuter transit/parking, learning and development, home office equipment, and much more.
• Mental health and wellness benefits including no cost employee access to Modern Health coaching & therapy Sessions and high quality physician office experience via One Medical membership (select U.S. locations only).
• Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP).

Pay

• Colorado range: $227,000 - $341,000 total target cash (inclusive of bonus or commission)
• New York City salary range: $254,000 - $381,000 total target cash (inclusive of bonus or commission)
• San Francisco Bay Area of California salary range: $254,000 - $381,000 total target cash (inclusive of bonus or commission)
• California salary range: $227,000 - $341,000 total target cash (inclusive of bonus or commission)
• Washington salary range: $227,000 - $341,000 total target cash (inclusive of bonus or commission)
• Washington only: unlimited PTO, 10 to 13 holidays annually (will vary), medical dental and vision PPO and CDHP plans.

Schedule

• Hybrid work model.