Remote Engineering Manager / Development Manager (Player-Coach)

Engineering Manager / Technical Leader (WPForms)

As an Engineering Manager on the WPForms team at Awesome Motive, you will serve as a hands-on technical leader. This hybrid role requires you to thrive as both a leader and an individual contributor, seamlessly switching between writing production code, architecting solutions, and leading a talented team of developers.

You are expected to maintain individual contributions while driving team excellence, mentoring developers, and ensuring our WordPress plugins deliver exceptional quality to millions of users worldwide.

This is a hybrid role: approximately 40-50% of your time will be dedicated to hands-on technical work, and 50-60% to leadership and management responsibilities. You must be comfortable adjusting this split based on team needs. We require someone who demonstrates extreme ownership, operates with high agency, and takes full accountability for both team outcomes and individual deliverables.

The ideal candidate leads by example, is in the codebase daily, sets and maintains a high technical bar, and is comfortable jumping into complex problems, writing code alongside the team, and making technical decisions with confidence and autonomy while collaborating closely with the Product Manager.

The Ideal Candidate Profile (Player-Coach)

• You embody extreme ownership: taking charge and delivering results when needed.
• You operate with high agency: identifying problems, creating solutions, and executing without constant oversight.
• You are a player-coach who leads from the front and by example.
• You are an excellent communicator, fluent in verbal and written English, ensuring transparency and clarity.
• You take pride in both individual contributions and team success.
• You mentor through pair programming and code reviews, not just meetings.
• You can give and receive critical feedback constructively and act on it quickly.
• You are passionate about building both great products and great teams.
• You are capable of leading Teams of Teams.

Common Responsibilities

Leadership (50-60% of time)

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of developers through hands-on collaboration.
• Facilitate technical discussions.
• Remove blockers and shield the team from distractions while maintaining productivity.
• Drive hiring decisions and help build a world-class engineering team.
• Establish and maintain development processes that enable high-velocity delivery.
• Collaborate with Product, QA, and Design teams to ensure alignment.
• Take full ownership of team deliverables and deadlines.
• Foster a culture of extreme ownership and high agency within your team.

Technical Leadership (40-50% of time)

• Write production-quality code for critical features and complex problems.
• Architect technical solutions and make key technical decisions.
• Evaluate, implement, and establish best practices for AI tools adoption to enhance team productivity while maintaining code ownership and security standards.
• Lead by example through hands-on coding, debugging, and problem-solving.
• Perform code reviews and ensure code quality standards are exceeded.
• Optimize performance and scalability for millions of WordPress users.
• Drive technical excellence through direct contribution to the codebase.
• Prepare and review technical design documents (Pitches) for major features.
• Troubleshoot and resolve the most challenging technical issues through direct involvement.

Required Skills & Experience

Technical Requirements

• Proven work experience in web development (7+ years).
• Hands-on engineering leadership experience (3+ years).
• Strong proficiency in PHP (modern PHP 7+/8+) (5+ years).
• Experience with Laravel or other modern PHP frameworks.
• Experience leveraging AI-powered coding assistants to accelerate development workflows and improve code quality across the team.
• Extensive experience with WordPress plugin development (4+ years).
• Expert-level understanding of JavaScript (ES6+), HTML5, CSS3.
• Deep experience with MySQL, database optimization, and scaling.
• Mastery of software design patterns, SOLID principles, and clean architecture.
• Proven track record of shipping production code regularly while in a leadership role.
• Experience with Git workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps practices.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Strong experience with RESTful APIs and third-party integrations.
• Demonstrated ability to debug and solve complex technical problems independently.

Leadership Requirements

• Proven experience leading engineering teams while maintaining individual contribution.
• Track record of mentoring developers and improving team capabilities.
• Ability to make autonomous decisions and take full accountability for outcomes.
• Experience balancing technical debt with feature delivery.
• Ability to manage special projects while maintaining a high level of collaboration with the Project Management function.
• Experience working in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Ability to keep complex ideas and features simple (Simplicity is a core value).
• English at the upper intermediate level or higher.
• Experience leading fully remote, distributed teams.

Basic Requirements

• Personal Computer with Internet Access.
• Availability to participate in audio/video meetings between 9 AM and 5 PM ET.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience with React, Vue.js, or other modern JavaScript frameworks.
• Experience scaling WordPress to handle millions of users.
• Track record of significant open-source contributions or WordPress core contributions.
• Experience with microservices and distributed systems.
• Background in SaaS platforms and subscription-based products.
• Experience with performance optimization at scale.
• Experience integrating AI/ML features into WordPress plugins or SaaS products.
• Previous experience in a player-coach role at a high-growth company.
• Track record of building and scaling engineering teams from scratch.

Benefits & Perks

Working for this fast-growing bootstrapped company is considered a lifestyle choice. We offer challenging positions with amazing advantages and fulfillment.

• Competitive Salary.
• Term Life Insurance and Accidental Death & Dismemberment for all full-time team members.
• Health, Dental, and Vision Insurance benefits for full-time U.S. employees.
• Health Insurance benefits for all employees in Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Spain, and Ukraine.
• Work from your home (remote position globally distributed).
• Flexible PTO after 90 days of employment.
• Holidays (based on your location).
• Paid Parental Leave.
• Reimbursement for software, books, or courses that promote continued learning.
• Coverage of all company travel costs (including annual all-company retreat and mini-team meetups).
• Additional Perks: AM Welcome Box, Yearly Anniversary Gifts, and Technology Stipend each work anniversary.
• Opportunity to solve challenging and meaningful problems.
• Ability to work with some of the best people in the business.
• No politics, no b.s., and no jerks.

Location & Availability

This is a remote position with a globally distributed team. The company operating hours are 9 AM - 5 PM ET (UTC -5). While full coverage is not required, you must be available during a portion of the day.

How to Apply

If this sounds interesting, please submit your application. Clearly include the following in your cover letter:

1. Describe a time when you demonstrated extreme ownership by taking charge of a critical situation without being asked. What was the outcome?
2. Tell us about the most complex technical problem you've personally solved while in a leadership role.
3. Have you led any major technology migrations, platform upgrades, or system modernizations? Briefly describe.
4. Tell us about a time where you had to make trade-offs between shipping speed and shipping the perfect solution - what compromises did you make?
5. Share an example of a high-agency decision you made that significantly impacted your team or product.
6. Describe a time when you had to make a difficult product or technical decision autonomously. How did you approach it?
7. Links to your GitHub profile showing recent commits, portfolio, or any open-source contributions.

We also appreciate a 2-minute video introducing yourself and answering the following questions:

• Tell us a bit about yourself and why you should be considered the top candidate for this position. Details about your experience (especially WordPress), qualifications, personality, etc., are very helpful.
• What percentage of your time do you currently spend writing code vs. managing? What's your ideal ratio?

Proofread carefully before submitting. We will only respond individually to strong matches.