Engineering Manager (m/f/d) – Core Team

We build the software that runs tenant electricity projects: meter data in, billing out, and everything in between. The Core Team is responsible for the operator portal, the product on which our customers' ongoing operations are based. It is our most technically in-depth team, and it is growing.

The operator portal is not a generic SaaS. It reflects the energy industry: metering point operation, market communication, grid surcharges, levies, billing according to rules that the legislator writes and regularly changes. Those who prioritize here must understand what a requirement means economically for the operator and what happens if it is implemented incorrectly.

For this, we are looking for a person who leads the team and understands the business behind it. Not as a conduit for tickets and not as an architect who decides everything himself, but as someone who translates business requirements into technical decisions and ensures that good developers can do good work: clear goals, little friction, honest feedback, reliable delivery.

The path to this is intentionally chosen: You will start as a developer in the Core Team for about six months. You will build features, do reviews, and get to know the codebase, the domain knowledge, and the people from the inside. After that, you will take over the leadership of the team. Anyone who wants to lead a team they have never seen from the inside will lead it past what matters.

Technically: Python with Django and Django Ninja in the backend, React with TypeScript in the frontend, PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB, deployed on Kubernetes via GitOps with ArgoCD. AI coding assistants are an integral part of the workflow. In the first few months, you will write this code yourself. Afterwards, you must be able to read it and understand what your team is discussing.

In the first six months

• You work as a developer in the Core Team: features end-to-end, reviews, deployments, support cases. No special role.

• You learn the domain knowledge from metering concepts to billing and the history of the codebase, including the parts that hurt.

• You build trust with the people in the team because you work with them, not above them.

Afterwards

• You lead the Core Team: hiring, onboarding, 1:1s, development, feedback. The people in the team are your first responsibility.

• You are responsible for delivery: Together with Product, you prioritize based on economic value and regulatory pressure, plan realistically, and ensure that what has been promised is completed.

• You contribute domain expertise to product decisions: You recognize when a requirement comes from the market, when from an individual customer, and when from a misunderstanding.

• You maintain technical quality without being the bottleneck yourself: You moderate architectural decisions, demand tests and reviews, and create space for refactoring.

• You are the interface to Product, Support, and the other Engineering teams, and you resolve conflicts before they land in the sprint.

• You make problems visible: If something isn't working, you say it early and with a suggestion, not late and with an excuse.

• You design processes in a way that serves the team, and eliminate those that don't.

• Several years of experience as a software developer with web applications in production. You can work productively in Django and React or get up to speed in a few weeks.

• Experience in leading a development team, as an Engineering Manager, Team Lead, or in a comparable role with personnel responsibility.

• You can assess a data model and moderate an architecture discussion without taking it over.

• You want to write code again or continue to write code before you lead, and see this as an advantage, not a detour.

• Experience in the energy industry, ideally in metering point operation, billing, market communication, or tenant electricity. You don't just know terms like metering concept, MaLo, or OBIS from Wikipedia.

• Business understanding: You think from the operator's business model, not from the feature. You can explain which requirement secures revenue, which reduces risk, and which is just nice to have.

• You give direct feedback and can handle receiving direct feedback.

• You can say no, to stakeholders and to your own team, and explain why.

• You feel comfortable in a startup where structures are still being created and you help shape them.

• German at least at C1 level, because the domain knowledge, customers, and a large part of the communication are in German.

• A leadership role with real scope for design in a growing engineering organization, with an onboarding that doesn't throw you into the deep end.

• Direct line to the CTO and a say in team structure, not just in implementation.

• Hybrid in Hamburg: 1-2 days in the office, the rest remote.

• A team without hierarchy levels. Whoever has a better idea implements it.

• Subsidy for Deutschlandticket, bike leasing, Urban Sports Club, and company pension plan.

• A product that concretely advances the energy transition, rather than just writing it into presentations.

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