Senior Engineering Manager - AI Agents

Aperture Cloud is transforming the way companies plan, manage, and optimize sales performance. We started by revolutionizing incentive compensation management, and now we're expanding our platform to solve broader sales planning challenges. Recognized by industry analysts like Forrester and G2 and backed by top-tier investors, including Sequoia, ICONIQ, Accel, and Sapphire Ventures, we empower high-growth companies like Netflix, Figma, and Stripe with the flexibility and insights needed to drive revenue performance. About the Role AI agents are becoming central to how Aperture Cloud delivers value — from automating complex commission workflows to enabling customers to interact with their data through natural language. We're looking for a Senior Engineering Manager to own our AI agent platform and inform the strategic vision for how AI capabilities are adopted across the product. This is not a pure execution role. You'll be an important voice in defining Aperture Cloud 's AI strategy — partnering directly with Product leadership and the executive team to shape the company's AI roadmap and setting a technical vision for the AI platform that balances near-term product impact with long-term investment. You'll be accountable for translating that vision into shipped capabilities that move business metrics. You'll lead the AI Platform team — responsible for our internal agent SDK, LLM orchestration layer, and the evaluation and observability infrastructure that underpins it all. Beyond your team's direct output, you'll serve as the senior technical voice for AI across the engineering organization, driving thought leadership on how every pillar adopts and integrates AI capabilities into their products. As the senior engineering leader for AI at Aperture Cloud , you'll have outsized influence on both the technology and the culture of how we build with AI. Responsibilities Lead, inspire, and grow a distributed engineering team, fostering a culture of high trust, psychological safety, and intellectual curiosity. Develop engineering talent through effective coaching, mentorship, and performance management, with a focus on growing senior and staff-level engineers. Own the end-to-end delivery and operational excellence of the AI platform, ensuring AI systems are reliable, safe, and performant in production. Partner with Product, Design, and other cross-functional leaders to set a clear vision, prioritize roadmaps, and align a long-term strategy that optimizes for the entire organization. Be a key voice in shaping Aperture Cloud 's broader AI strategy, informing how AI capabilities are adopted and integrated across the product. Provide technical leadership and direction by setting architectural guardrails and guiding major technical decisions without being a direct code contributor. Drive AI adoption standards and best practices that enable product teams across the company to build AI-powered features using the platform your team provides. Staff projects strategically and plan for long-term headcount and recruiting needs to set the organization up for sustained success. Requirements Extensive software development experience as an individual contributor, and a proven track record as an Engineering Manager leading distributed software engineering teams. Hands-on experience building and shipping AI-powered products in production — LLM orchestration, agent frameworks, or applied ML systems. You understand the unique engineering challenges of AI systems (evaluation, non-determinism, cost, latency) and can guide teams through them. Broad understanding of the state of the art in AI, LLMs, and applied LLM systems. You stay current with the latest developments, know what the industry has to offer, and bring that context to every strategic and technical decision. A strategic thinker, comfortable setting technical vision over a 6-12 month horizon and managing a complex portfolio of projects. A strong product sense and a proven track record of delivering high-quality results across the full product lifecycle, with the ability to connect technical investments to customer and business outcomes. Proven ability to influence technical direction beyond your own team — you've shaped how other teams build, not just your own. A track record of hiring and developing senior talent, with a passion for helping engineers advance their careers. Exceptional interpersonal and written communication skills, with a proven ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional partners in a remote-first environment. High sense of ownership and a strong growth mindset; you are a collaborative, humble learner who can adapt strategy when the landscape shifts or results aren't moving the needle. Bonus points Experience leading AI platform or internal developer tools teams that serve other engineering teams as customers. Hands-on experience with LLM orchestration frameworks, MCP integrations, or agent SDK design. Background in building AI evaluation and observabil