Manager, Engineering

For over 20 years, Smartsheet has empowered teams to manage work seamlessly and scale solutions smarter. Now, in our most ambitious chapter yet, we are uniting human teams with AI agents. By orchestrating the work agents do best, automating manual tasks and uncovering insights at scale, we create the space for people to focus on what truly matters: judgment, creativity, and big thinking. That is magic at work, and it’s what we show up for every day.

The Grid Service and Platform Engineering team is looking for a highly motivated and collaborative Software Engineering Manager. This role involves leading the engineering of mission-critical, tier 0 service infrastructure, the foundational data platform that powers Smartsheet at scale. You will oversee services that handle millions requests per day, operate at 99.999% availability, and deliver low-latency, high-throughput performance for millions of customers worldwide.

We are an agile team that operates iteratively, focused on building high-quality software and adhering to rigorous operational best practices across complex, cross-functional distributed systems.

This full-time position reports to the Director, Engineering and can be located in our Bellevue, WA office, or you may work remotely from anywhere in the US where Smartsheet is a registered employer.

You Will:

• Manage one or more related teams of 6-10+ software engineers, driving development of tier 0 grid services and platform infrastructure that millions of customers depend on daily.
• Own and uphold 99.999% service availability targets across critical platform services, embedding reliability engineering, incident management, and on-call rigor into team culture.
• Help architect and guide technical vision to evolve low-latency, high-throughput service platforms capable of sustaining millions requests per day with predictable, consistent performance under load.
• Guide and mentor engineers on distributed systems architecture, scalability patterns, and platform best practices while leading design reviews for high-stakes system components.
• Lead cross-functional technical efforts spanning multiple upstream dependents, partner teams, and internal consumers, building alignment and resolving systemic dependencies across the organization.
• Plan and deliver complex, end-to-end infrastructure projects with high technical ambiguity, managing risks, communicating clearly to stakeholders, and building cross-team consensus.
• Drive SLO/SLA definition, capacity planning, performance benchmarking, and observability strategy across your platform services.
• Partner closely with product management, infrastructure, security, and other engineering pillars to shape technical roadmaps and contribute to long-range platform strategy.
• Hire exceptional engineering talent and grow your teams by attracting, developing, and advancing great engineers strategically across multiple teams.
• Mentor and coach both individual contributors and managers within and beyond your teams, identifying and developing potential successors.
• Own quarterly and annual technical and operational goals for your platform area, managing metrics, reporting, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Communicate effectively with executives and non-technical stakeholders, anticipating cross-team conflicts and proactively driving resolution.
• Champion AI adoption in both software and platform engineering lifecycles, leveraging shared learnings to improve operational efficiency and customer experiences.

You Have:

• 8+ years of software development, strong CS fundamentals (algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, systems design).
• 3+ years of engineering management, leading high-availability infrastructure/platform services.
• Proven track record owning and operating tier 0/mission-critical systems with five-nines (99.999%) availability.
• Hands-on experience building/operating low-latency, high-throughput service platforms (millions requests/day).
• Deep understanding of scalability, fault tolerance, and operational patterns for five-nines availability.
• Experience managing complex dependencies across distributed architectures.
• Strong CS fundamentals: distributed systems, concurrency, caching, data consistency, performance optimization.
• Experience building and scaling large-scale, cloud-native backend services (AWS or equivalent).
• Proficiency with observability: metrics, distributed tracing, alerting, and SLO/SLA management at scale.
• Experience productionizing services for multiple internal/external platform consumers.
• Demonstrated success building and scaling engineering teams (recruiting, onboarding, retaining senior/staff engineers).
• Experience with Agile/Scrum and iterative delivery on long-horizon infrastructure projects.
• Ability to balance engineering excellence with operational pragmatism.
• Communicates clearly and consistently with technical and non-technical audiences, including executive leadership
• Proactively surfaces risks, blockers, and status updates without prompting
• Provides direct, constructive feedback and supports engineer growth at all levels
• Plus: Experience building/managing full-stack teams.
• Plus: Exposure to AI/ML platform integration or AI-powered backend features.
• CS/Engineering degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Must be legally eligible to work in the US on an ongoing basis.

Current US Perks & Benefits:

• Employer subsidized medical/vision and dental coverage for full-time employees
• 401k Match to help you save for your future (50% of your contribution up to the first 6% of your eligible pay)
• Monthly stipend to support your work and productivity
• Flexible Time Away Program, plus Sick Time Off
• US employees are automatically covered under Smartsheet-sponsored life insurance, short-term, and long-term disability plans
• US employees receive 12 paid holidays per year
• Up to 24 weeks of Parental Leave
• Personal paid Volunteer Day to support our community
• Opportunities for professional growth and development including access to Udemy online courses
• Company Funded Perks, including a counseling membership, local retail discounts, and your own personal Smartsheet account
• Teleworking options from any registered location in the U.S. (role specific)

Smartsheet provides a competitive base salary range for roles that may be hired in different geographic areas we are licensed to operate our business from. Actual compensation is determined by several factors including, but not limited to, level of professional, educational experience, skills, and specific candidate location. In addition, this role will be eligible for a market competitive incentive opportunity.

US Base Salary Pay Range

$192,500—$227,500 USD

Get to Know Us:

At Smartsheet, your ideas are heard, your potential is supported, and your contributions have real impact. You’ll have the freedom to explore, push boundaries, and grow beyond your role. We welcome diverse perspectives and nontraditional paths-because we know that impact comes from individuals who care deeply and challenge thoughtfully. When you’re doing work that stretches you, excites you, and connects you to something bigger, that’s magic at work. Let’s build what’s next, together.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Smartsheet is an Equal Opportunity (EEO) employer committed to fostering an inclusive environment with the best employees. It is our policy to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants in accordance with applicable laws in the US, UK, Australia, Germany, Costa Rica, Japan, Bulgaria, India, and Singapore. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran or disabled status, or genetic information. 

If there are preparations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please let us know.