The Team

Five9 has led the cloud revolution in contact centers, helping organizations transition from legacy premise-based solutions to the cloud. The cloud contact center market has become the hot space for innovation in real-time communications and is the tip of the spear for the application of Artificial Intelligence, especially Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLM). Our Studio Product Engineering team is responsible for developing a suite of leading-edge AI products built upon industry-leading AI tech from vendors like OpenAI, Google, IBM Watson and Amazon and integrate into Five9 wider well-developed microservices platform. 

Our vision is nothing less than to reimagine the experience of connection between end users and the brands which serve them. Our AI agents will offer self-service which delights and accomplishes tasks at super-human speeds, while also blending in live human agents for the many cases when a human touch is needed. Our AI agents will assist the live agents too and help supervisors and managers get the most out of their mix of human and AI labor. 

Role Purpose 

As a Senior Engineering Manager, you will serve as a hands-on technology leader and role model within the team, contributing to the hiring, retention and technical management of the team. You will be contributing to the architecture, design and development of software across the studio product to meet both business and technology objectives. This role requires someone who can wear multiple hats by aligning perspectives across teams, making smart trade-offs, and driving progress toward shared goals. You will be an active contributor of software, review the work of others, and be on the leading edge on the usage of AI for rapid software development.  

As the manager of this team, you'll wear multiple hats. You'll be deeply involved in technical decision-making while also focusing on growing and supporting your team members. We’re looking for someone who is passionate about operational excellence, eager to dive into complex production issues alongside their engineers, but who also excels at mentoring, career development, and creating a positive team culture. 

A strong technical background in distributed and scalable systems on cloud platforms such as GCP, AWS, or Azure is essential. 

Key Responsibilities  

Technical Leadership: 

You'll be leading a team that's essential to our engineering organization's success. Take deep ownership of all aspects of product software engineering, including feature development, production incident management, addressing technical debt, and contributing to technology roadmaps and solution architecture. Provide strong technical leadership and mentorship to local engineering teams and serve as the go-to expert for engineering leaders on complex technical challenges. 

Hands-on Development: 

Design and implement features by writing clean, maintainable code based on product requirements and customer feedback. Establish and maintain coding standards, shared libraries, and practices. Review code from others. Use AI to aid the development of software and guide others to be effective with it.  

People Leadership: 

Involve in the hiring as we grow the team, from writing job descriptions to interviewing candidates and helping new team members get up to speed. 

Lead the performance management of the team by conducting regular one-on-ones with your engineers, helping them grow in their careers, and building a collaborative culture where everyone feels empowered to tackle complex technical challenges.  

Production Incident resolution: 

Lead development investigations and conduct deep root cause analyses for production incidents. Deliver timely resolutions with a focus on speed, quality, and long-term stability. 

Communication Skills: 

Communication will be a big part of your role too. You'll be regularly updating senior leadership on your team's progress and the overall health of our systems. During incidents, you might be the one explaining technical issues to non-technical stakeholders and ensuring everyone understands the impact and resolution timeline. 

Required Skills 

Management & Leadership 

• 3+ years of Engineering management experience in a product company with direct reports 

• Proven track record of building and leading high-performing engineering teams 

• Experience with agile development methodologies and team processes 

• Strong coaching, mentoring, and performance management skills 

• Excellent written and verbal communication abilities 

Technical Expertise 

• 10 + years of experience in designing and developing distributed, and scalable systems on a cloud-based platform (GCP, AWS or Azure) in a SaaS company. Hands-on expertise in cloud-native backend microservices with Java & backend frameworks like Spring Boot. 

• Highly proficient in a variety of programming languages, including but not limited to Java, PHP, JavaScript or others as required.   

• Knowledge of database design and optimization (MySQL, PostgreSQL) 

• Strong Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines and containerized deployment processes 

• Understanding of web application security principles and best practices 

System Operations 

• Experience with production incident management and debugging complex issues 

• Knowledge of monitoring tools, logging systems, and application performance management like New Relic, Grafana, Prometheus etc. 

• Experience with library dependency management and upgrade planning 

• Familiarity with security vulnerability scanning and remediation processes 

Desirable  

• Experience with PHP & Laravel 

• Experience with web development technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and modern front-end frameworks like Vue.js or React.  

• Experience with Contact Centre, IVR, Virtual Agents, VoIP and telecommunications service providers is advantageous.  

Reporting Structure 

This position reports directly to the Director of Engineering and involves close collaboration with other engineering managers across the organization. You'll work regularly with our SRE team on infrastructure improvements, coordinate with product leadership on technical roadmap planning, and partner with our security and platform teams on cross-cutting initiatives that affect the entire engineering organization.