{"id":949237,"url":"https://alion.io/job/mode-mobile-engineering-manager-acquired-products-vpn-remote","title":"Engineering Manager (Upcoming Apps Portfolio & VPN) (Remote)","company":{"id":678760,"name":"Mode Mobile","domain":"modemobile.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/modemobile","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-02T06:13:15Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"inferred_payroll_markers","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":104000,"max_usd":259000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_seniority_cell","sample_n":2356},"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon S3","optional":false},{"name":"Ansible","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"AWS Lambda","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Clean Architecture","optional":false},{"name":"Datadog","optional":false},{"name":"DNS","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Jetpack Compose","optional":false},{"name":"Kotlin","optional":false},{"name":"Node JS","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SOC 2","optional":false},{"name":"Swift","optional":false},{"name":"SwiftUI","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"UIKit","optional":false},{"name":"VPN","optional":false},{"name":"Firebase","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"RevenueCat","optional":true},{"name":"Stripe","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-15T22:21:57Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-09","last_verified_at":"2026-11-02T16:46:34Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":47,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":47},"description":"Who We Are (Mode.Inc)\nMode is a fast-growing technology company building businesses at the intersection of AI, data, mobile apps, and digital experiences. Our portfolio of mobile apps and digital products reaches 100M+ monthly active users across a global audience. We continue to accelerate growth through product innovation, strategic acquisitions, and emerging business opportunities.\nMode was recognized by Deloitte as the #1 fastest-growing software company in North America on the 2023 Technology Fast 500. Today, we are building our next phase of growth, including expanding Mode's AI and data business and developing direct relationships with companies that can benefit from the data and capabilities we have built.\nOur Team and Culture Drive Our Success\nOur team is the heart of our culture. We value innovation, collaboration, and curiosity, with a passion for getting things done. We strive to hire and cultivate the best team members and foster a culture of open communication and transparency. We are driven and hard-working but also committed to having fun along the way. We allow OKRs to guide us, assume positive intent, sometimes agree to disagree and commit, honor our commitments, seek to accomplish more with less, and encourage everyone to speak up as our team owns our company’s success.\nYou can read more about our team and how we work here.\nThe Role\nMode Mobile is looking for a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead the engineering team taking ownership of a VPN product following its acquisition, and to become a technical leader for future acquired products.\nThis role sits at the intersection of engineering leadership, product ownership, and technical acquisition integration. You will take unfamiliar, live products from acquisition through transition, stabilization, integration, and ongoing growth.\nWe are a user-facing product-led team, and we are looking for someone who is passionate about turning acquired products into thriving, well-run businesses.\nThis is a player-coach role. Initially you will be hands-on with development and operations alongside your engineers: reviewing and writing code, closing knowledge gaps left by the previous team, and making the architectural and prioritization calls that come with inheriting a live product. As the team grows and the transition stabilizes, your focus will shift toward people leadership, delivery management, and building a repeatable playbook for onboarding future acquisitions. \nYou’ll work closely with the VP of Engineering, Product Managers, other Engineering Managers, Corporate development, Marketing, Operations, and several stakeholders to define and execute according to our strategic roadmap to accelerate our future growth.\nWho You Are and What You’ll Do\nYou are passionate about giving people private, secure, and unrestricted access to the internet, and about helping users get more value from their smartphones. You care about your users and your team in equal measure.\nYou are a strong engineer who chose to lead: you can still read a Kotlin, Swift, or Go pull request critically, debug a production incident, and make sound architecture decisions, and you enjoy stepping in when the team needs it.\nAcquisition and Integration\nLead technical onboarding of acquired products from due diligence through transition and steady-state ownership.\nAssess inherited architecture, infrastructure, security, vendors, operational risks, and technical debt.\nEstablish knowledge transfer and ensure critical operational knowledge is documented.\nDefine and execute the transition plan with the acquired team and Mode stakeholders.\nBuild and continuously improve a repeatable engineering acquisition playbook.\nYou are comfortable operating with incomplete information. Acquired products rarely come with perfect documentation, clean architecture, or complete ownership records. You know how to establish the facts quickly, identify the highest risks, and make pragmatic decisions without waiting for perfect information.\nYou build teams: you hire, onboard, coach, and grow engineers, run effective 1:1s, give candid feedback, and create a culture of ownership, testing, and continuous delivery.\nYou embrace agentic AI as a force multiplier for your team: you use AI coding agents yourself for code, investigation, and documentation, and you set the standards and workflows for how your engineers use them safely and productively.\nYou value working closely with Product Management, learning directly from users about what matters to them, and developing solutions that they love.\nYou run delivery well: 2-week sprints, clear OKRs, sensible estimation, and honest status reporting up to leadership, with a bias toward finding minimal ways to test hypotheses and validate feasibility.\nYou’re a strong advocate for unit/integration testing, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and continuously shipping to production, and you will establish them where they don’t exist yet.\nYou are security- and compliance-minded: secrets management, encryption, key handling, user privacy, and regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2 are part of how you run a team that operates a privacy product.\nWhat You Bring to the Team\nMust Have:\n8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 2+ years managing engineers as a people manager or hands-on tech lead/manager in an agile environment delivering consumer products to end-users.\nStrong hands-on technical background, with deep expertise in at least one of our core areas and enough breadth to work effectively across the stack. Experience in two or more of the following is a strong plus:\nNative mobile: Android (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose) and/or iOS (Swift, UIKit/SwiftUI), including app store release management\nBackend services in Go (preferred), Python, or Node.js, with PostgreSQL and AWS (Lambda, S3, RDS)\nInfrastructure and DevOps: Terraform, Ansible, Docker, multi-cloud/multi-provider hosting, Datadog or similar observability\nNetworking and VPN fundamentals: WireGuard, Shadowsocks or similar, DNS, TLS, and how mobile VPN clients and servers fit together\nExperience leading or being a key contributor in a technical acquisition, migration, or takeover of a live product: due diligence, transition planning, knowledge transfer, and integration into a parent organization.\nA track record of raising engineering quality on an inherited system: introducing automated testing, CI/CD, code review, documentation, and security hardening without stopping feature delivery.\nAgentic AI proficiency: Strong practical experience using AI coding agents and other AI tools for software development, investigation, testing, and documentation, with an understanding of how to use them safely and effectively within an engineering team.\nYou’re a candid and empathetic communicator that is excited to join a startup that enjoys leveling up a company, and you are comfortable communicating status, risks, and trade-offs to executives.\nYou have exceptional organizational and analytical skills leading to confident independent delivery, but know when and how to include others.\nYou have experience building and operating large-scale systems and have led technical direction for a team.\nPassionate about Technology and keeping up to date with latest advancements, techniques and best practices.\nAlignment with our Core Values:Accountable: You take ownership of your responsibilities, demonstrating trustworthiness and self-discipline. You are consistent in your work, transparent in your actions, and communicate effectively. You follow through on commitments and strive for continuous improvement.\nAction-driven: Identify what is most important, agree on scope, timely execute, and drive the greatest impact. You take initiative, roll up your sleeves, and get things done.\nCaring: You genuinely care about yourself and others, our business and craft, our mission and vision, and are passionate in heart and mind. You understand the importance of our team and strive to create a positive, supportive work environment.\nCurious: You focus on the ‘why,’ learn and expand your knowledge, explore new ideas, and generally make things better. You're a lifelong learner with a thirst for knowledge and a constant desire to improve.\nThorough: Your work is thoughtful, impactful, timely, accurate, and complete. You pay attention to detail, are meticulous, and ensure quality work and compliance.\n\nNice to Have:\nExperience running a consumer VPN, proxy, or privacy product, including operating in restrictive network environments and handling law-enforcement / data requests\nExperience managing distributed, remote, multi-timezone teams, including contractors or a small inherited team\nExperience with subscription businesses: in-app purchases, Stripe, RevenueCat, attribution and analytics (Mixpanel, Amplitude, Firebase)\nExperience with vendor and cost management across multiple cloud and hosting providers\nCompliance program experience (SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA) and security audits\nExperience building an acquisition-integration playbook or an internal engineering standards program.\nWhat Success Looks Like\nIn your first 90 days:\nYou understand the recently acquired VPN product architecture, infrastructure, product, operational dependencies and business context.\nCritical technical and security risks are identified and prioritized.\nKnowledge gaps from the acquisition are closed.\nThe team has clear ownership, delivery cadence, and operational responsibilities.\nWithin 6 months:\nApp is operating reliably within Mode's engineering standards.\nThe team is shipping predictably and improving the product.\nKey technical debt and infrastructure risks are under control.\nYou have established a repeatable approach to evaluating and onboarding future acquisitions.\nLonger term:\nYou build a strong engineering team capable of owning acquired products independently.\nYou lead technical integration of additional acquisitions.\nYou continuously improve Mode's acquisition-to-operation playbook.\nWe Believe in the Following Workplace Norms\nAllow OKRs to Guide Us\nAssume Positive Intent\nAgree to Disagree & Commit\nSet New Precedents\nAccomplish More with Less\nHold Yourself & Others to High Standards\nSpeak Up\nBe Resourceful\nFollow the 80/20 Rule\nWhat We Are Offering\nWe are a 100% remote-first, global company.\nA competitive compensation package.\nWe offer generous perks and benefits to team members. \nParticipation in the Company's equity plan (for full-time team members).\nWe provide individual bonuses in accordance with our Company Bonus Program.\nWork with energetic, passionate, and results-driven people.\nCelebrate team members' personal and work milestones.\nRemote social activities, including virtual coffee buddies. \nBonusly - We use Bonusly as a way to recognize and reward team members for their hard work and commitment.\nWeekly Wednesday Get Stuff Done Days (No Meetings).\nOpen PTO, generous Company Holidays, and Wellness Days (for full-time team members).\nThis role is ideal for a results-driven marketing professional with a strong technical background and a keen eye for detail. If you are passionate about digital marketing and investor communications, we encourage you to apply and join a dynamic and innovative team.\nIf we just described you and your perfect role, we'd love to talk with you. We have a lot to accomplish this year and look forward to making headway and creating success together!\nMode.Inc does not accept/pay fees for unsolicited resumes from third-party agencies/vendors.\nOur company is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer. We are committed to providing a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. 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