Engineering Manager, Managed Services

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Engineering Manager, Managed Services based in New Zealand.

This is an opportunity for a technically strong Engineering Manager to lead a distributed team responsible for operating and continuously improving modern cloud infrastructure. You will oversee managed services for customer environments built on technologies such as Kubernetes and OpenStack, balancing operational excellence with engineering quality. The role combines people leadership, technical decision-making, service delivery, and customer collaboration. You will help establish effective engineering and operations processes while ensuring teams remain focused on priorities, milestones, and service commitments. The environment is highly remote and international, with collaboration across engineering, product, operations, and customer teams worldwide. It is an ideal role for someone passionate about Linux, cloud technologies, open source, and building high-performing distributed engineering teams.

Accountabilities

• Lead and develop a growing engineering team, improving both development velocity and operational quality.
• Manage the day-to-day delivery of managed services across customer environments, ensuring reliable and consistent service.
• Establish disciplined engineering and operations processes that support scalability, maintainability, and continuous improvement.
• Monitor team health indicators and take action to improve team effectiveness, collaboration, and performance.
• Maintain clear focus on priorities, milestones, deliverables, and customer commitments.
• Represent the managed services team with customers, internal stakeholders, product engineering teams, and external partners.
• Ensure service-level agreements are consistently met across customer deployments around the world.
• Drive ongoing improvements to products, processes, and operational practices based on customer and engineering feedback.
• Collaborate closely with engineering, product, and operations teams to resolve complex issues and deliver reliable distributed systems.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent education in a technology-related field, or comparable professional experience.
• Proven professional experience in software engineering using technologies such as Python, Go, C, C++, Java, or similar, and/or experience managing technical operations teams.
• Demonstrated professional experience with OpenStack.
• Strong understanding of testing methodologies, maintainable code, and software quality practices.
• Experience with Linux system administration; Ubuntu or Debian experience is a plus.
• Solid understanding of cloud architectures, topologies, and technologies.
• Technical aptitude for understanding and managing complex distributed systems.
• Experience working with agile software development methodologies.
• Proven experience working within and managing distributed or remote teams.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and stakeholder-management skills.
• A practical, customer-focused approach to service delivery and operational excellence.
• Willingness to travel for team events, company gatherings, and customer meetings, generally around 20% or less.

Benefits

• Fully distributed and remote working environment.
• In-person team gatherings and company events approximately two to four times per year.
• Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year.
• Annual compensation reviews, with compensation taking into account location, experience, and performance.
• Performance-based annual bonus or commission in addition to base compensation.
• Recognition and rewards programs.
• Annual holiday leave.
• Maternity and paternity leave.
• Team Member Assistance Program and wellness platform.
• Opportunities to travel internationally and meet colleagues in new locations.
• Priority Pass and travel upgrades for eligible long-haul company events.
• A global, collaborative environment focused on open source, Linux, cloud technologies, and continuous learning.