Sr. Engineering Manager - Incentive Compensation Ops.

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Sr. Engineering Manager - Incentive Compensation Ops. based in United States. This is a senior engineering leadership opportunity focused on one of the most widely used areas of a modern incentive compensation platform. You will lead a team responsible for critical experiences including payouts, reporting, inquiries, statements, and other operational workflows. A central part of the role is transforming these experiences into AI-native products that reduce manual work and accelerate issue resolution. You will own engineering delivery, reliability, security, scalability, and business outcomes across your team's portfolio. Working closely with Product, Design, Platform Engineering, Sales, Support, and Customer Success, you will shape both near-term priorities and long-term strategy. You will also hire, mentor, and develop engineers while helping build the next generation of engineering leadership. This role is ideal for a technically strong, people-focused leader who thrives in remote-first environments and enjoys turning complex operational challenges into intelligent products. Lead and develop the engineering organization: Hire, inspire, mentor, and grow software engineers across experience levels, creating a strong culture of technical excellence, career development, ownership, and continuous learning. Set product and engineering direction: Partner with Product, Design, Customer Success, Support, Sales, Platform Engineering, and other teams to establish a clear vision, prioritize roadmaps, and develop strategies that deliver meaningful customer and business value. Own engineering delivery and outcomes: Take accountability for the delivery, operational excellence, reliability, performance, and security of critical user-facing systems at scale. Provide technical leadership: Establish architectural guardrails, evaluate complex technical challenges, and guide senior engineers through significant architectural and engineering decisions without acting as the primary hands-on contributor. Drive AI-native transformation: Lead the evolution of incentive compensation operations from manual workflows toward intelligent, agent-driven experiences that automate repetitive tasks, reduce resolution times, and help users manage complex compensation processes more effectively. Improve engineering effectiveness: Establish processes and operating practices that enable engineers to work efficiently, collaborate effectively, and maintain strong relationships with teams across the organization. Strengthen engineering leadership: Collaborate with peer engineering managers and contribute to broader organizational initiatives beyond your immediate team. Champion organizational values: Model high standards of ownership, collaboration, humility, customer focus, and continuous improvement in day-to-day leadership. Requirements: Engineering leadership experience: 5+ years of experience managing software engineers, ideally within a remote-first B2B SaaS or startup environment. Software development background: 8+ years of full-time software development experience, preferably in product engineering or full-stack roles. Talent development: Demonstrated success hiring, developing, and retaining engineering talent, with a genuine commitment to helping engineers advance their careers. Product and user focus: Strong customer orientation and a track record of delivering high-quality, impactful products and features throughout the full development lifecycle. Technical depth: Ability to understand complex architectural problems, challenge technical approaches constructively, and guide senior engineers toward sound and scalable decisions. AI expertise and perspective: Genuine enthusiasm for AI-native product development, with hands-on experience or a strong, well-informed perspective on using AI and intelligent agents to eliminate manual w