Engineering Manager - Platform

Engineering Manager, Platform

About The Role

Fora Travel is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead and grow the Platform Team, the foundational engineering group responsible for the reliability, scalability, and developer experience that powers Fora's entire product suite. Our platform spans cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, observability systems, security, and the core tooling that lets every engineering team at Fora move fast and ship with confidence.

You will manage a team of talented engineers and work closely with Engineering leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to set the technical direction of our platform, drive meaningful improvements to developer productivity, and ensure our systems are built to scale with the business. This role is for someone who is equally energized by developing people and staying close to the architecture.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a cross-functional platform team, managing day-to-day execution, setting clear priorities, and maintaining sustainable, high-quality engineering practices.
• Stay hands-on with architecture and technical decisions, providing meaningful guidance on infrastructure design, platform scalability, and engineering standards across the team's scope.
• Own the roadmap for foundational platform capabilities including CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, observability, secrets management, and database reliability.
• Partner with engineering teams across Fora to establish SLOs, support reliability targets, and ensure platform systems meet the demands of a growing product organization.
• Coach and develop engineers through regular feedback, mentorship, and career development, with a commitment to building a motivated and high-performing team.
• Oversee relationships with contractors and embedded vendor resources, ensuring work is well-scoped, integrated effectively, and held to Fora's engineering standards.
• Collaborate with security-focused engineering efforts to ensure the platform reflects strong security and compliance practices, including network segmentation, secrets management, and access controls.
• Foster a collaborative and inclusive team environment that reflects Fora's commitment to building diverse, high-performing engineering teams.
• Contribute to recruiting by evaluating engineering candidates effectively and representing Fora positively throughout the process.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience in engineering management with a proven track record of successful delivery and team growth.
• 8+ years of experience in software or infrastructure engineering, with meaningful depth in platform, DevOps, or infrastructure domains.
• Strong technical acumen, with the ability to engage deeply in architecture decisions, infrastructure design, and engineering fundamentals rather than managing from a distance.
• Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), container orchestration, CI/CD systems, observability tooling, and database reliability at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, manage performance thoughtfully, and build teams that are engaged and growing.
• Exceptional project management and organizational skills, including the ability to break down complex infrastructure work, anticipate risks, and deliver consistently high-quality outcomes.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex infrastructure and platform concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Proven recruiting experience, including the ability to evaluate engineering candidates and represent the company well.
• A collaborative, empathetic leadership style grounded in humility, accountability, openness to feedback, and a genuine investment in the people around you.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and comfort working in an early- to mid-stage startup environment where ambiguity and pace are part of the fun.
• First-principles thinker who carefully evaluates each problem and thoughtfully chooses between established best practices and bespoke solutions, especially when designing team processes and technical standards.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience with high-traffic B2B2C platforms or marketplace architectures.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Terraform, PostgreSQL administration, and message queue systems such as RabbitMQ or Celery.

Compensation

Compensation for this role varies based on experience, with an indicative range of $210k–$235k + equity. Additional benefits include:

• Unlimited vacation
• Health Insurance (including an option completely covered by Fora HQ)
• Dental & Vision Insurance
• Wellhub Memberships
• 401k plan with company match
• Commuter Benefits
• Supplemental Life Insurance
• Stock Options

This role is based in our New York City office in Tribeca/Fidi, a space with lots of natural light and great views.