Software Engineering Manager

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein-packed, fiber-rich, calorie and carb conscious, keto-friendly, and dietitian-approved.

Similar to our recipes, we recognize that variety is the spice of life, and therefore, our employees also bring their uniqueness and color to our fantastic team. We’re eager to work with humble team players and pragmatic next-level thinkers to innovate on Home Chef’s offerings.

The Software Engineering Manager leads a team of engineers responsible for developing thoughtful technology solutions that span the entire business - from our customer-facing website and mobile app to internal tools supporting our supply chain and operations teams. At Home Chef, we pride ourselves on being great thought-partners and problem-solvers. This role balances people leadership and personal development with a commitment to operational excellence to ensure our technology drives impactful business outcomes.

Detailed Responsibilities

People & Performance Management

• Meets regularly with direct reports to provide guidance, support, and mentorship
• Proactively invests in the growth and career development of their direct reports, setting performance goals & clear expectations
• Holds direct reports to a high level of accountability; addresses performance issues early and directly
• Proactively seeks cross-functional or peer feedback on areas of improvement for their direct reports
• Monitors team health and engagement signals to ensure a sustainable and motivated team
• Meets regularly with engineering management and leadership to help drive quality and consistency across the team
• Translates and disseminates information from senior leadership to direct reports, ensuring clarity and managerial cohesion
• Administers mid-year and year-end performance reviews
• As needed, participates in hiring process, interviewing and assessing engineering talent

Delivery Ownership

• Acts as a strategic partner to product, technical leadership, and business stakeholders to build collaborative relationships and influence roadmaps
• Understands technical impact on product planning, and clearly communicates trade-offs to product and engineering teams
• Works with product & technical leadership to set deadlines and holds team accountable
• Takes ownership of solution delivery, ensuring the team's work is aligned with company goals
• Drives continuous improvement through team process improvements, automations, documentation, etc.
• Seeks root causes and process improvements when a sprint or release misses the mark
• Participates in on-call rotations, urgent issue resolutions, and stakeholder escalations

Technical Guidance

• Maintains proficiency in Ruby on Rails, React/React Native, Javascript, CSS, and Postgres
• Helps in proactively monitoring system health, stability, and observability to ensure high-quality production environments
• Can clearly communicate idiosyncrasies and trade offs in advanced technical topics
• Provides detailed, constructive feedback on pull requests and enables engineers to ship to production efficiently
• Able to pair with software engineers to solve complex problems and foster technical growth
• As needed, writes code to solve business problems and handles technical tickets
• Leads sprint meetings about discussions of technical topics

Key Traits and Behaviors:

Taking Ownership: We do whatever is necessary to get the job done - no job is too big or too small. We are willing to do any task at any level - and get our hands dirty (at a meal solutions company, sometimes we all have to do the dishes!). We work with speed, setting realistic but aggressive timelines. We do not allow a lack of perfect to get in the way of progress.

Pragmatic, Next-level Thinker: We explore new methodologies and strategies and are not constrained by conventional thinking or ‘the way we have always done it’. We take calculated risks in order to learn and innovate with speed, or ‘test and learn’. We pride ourselves on using data and insights to drive practical decisions in our fast-paced environment.

Humble Team Player:  We work collaboratively and effectively with colleagues, always putting company and team needs ahead of personal achievement. We are open to different points of view when weighing a decision, pulling in different people to provide fresh and unique perspectives.

Qualifications:

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, ability and/or other characteristics needed for this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities.

• The technical portions of this role will require more than passing familiarity with the tools and software our applications are built with, namely Ruby on Rails, React, javascript, etc.
• Previous management experience is strongly preferred
• Must be available to respond to work related on-call inquiries on scheduled nights and weekends
• Flexibility to travel to our production facilities as needed

More About Us

To view the California Applicant Notice click here