Engineering Manager (vintrace)

Encompass is seeking a motivated and knowledgeable Engineering Manager to lead our cross-functional development teams for vintrace, our industry-leading wine production software designed for future-forward producers.

In this role, you will balance full people management responsibilities with strategic technical oversight. You will take ownership of leading our developers, QA engineers, and tech leads, providing technical guidance while actively nurturing individual career growth. This role requires excellent project delivery and resource management skills to balance feature development with support resolutions and technical debt.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about engineering performance, team dynamics, and modern development practices. You will collaborate closely with product teams to scope innovative initiatives, ensuring timely product releases, high-quality standards, and alignment with modern AI-enabled tooling. Additionally, you will represent the engineering perspective in cross-functional meetings, department planning, and stakeholder discussions.

• Manage and Mentor: Lead a team of engineers and Engineering Leads, balancing daily technical guidance with active people management.
• Grow Talent: Develop professional development plans, conduct performance reviews, provide holistic feedback, and identify potential future leaders.
• Foster Culture: Manage team dynamics to ensure a positive, collaborative work environment, and partner with the People team on hiring and onboarding.

• Drive the Tech Roadmap: Develop and implement technical roadmaps for your team that align directly with department-wide goals.
• Modernize SDLC: Evolve software development lifecycle practices by adopting AI-enabled tooling and agentic coding to boost quality and delivery speed.
• Architect & Balance: Lead technical design reviews for significant projects while effectively managing technical debt and maintaining existing systems.

• Execute Effectively: Manage resource allocation across projects to ensure efficient, on-time delivery within scope and budget.
• Collaborate on Scope: Work hand-in-hand with Product Managers to define initiative scopes, timelines, and clear quality metrics.
• Mitigate Risk: Monitor project progress, clear bottlenecks, manage cross-team dependencies, and document project risks with actionable mitigations.

• Shape the Department: Participate in strategic planning, influence hiring decisions, and contribute to engineering standards across the department.
• Build Relationships: Act as the technical voice in cross-functional project meetings and build strong relationships with stakeholders to smooth project execution.

• Communication & Translation: Strong written and verbal communication skills, with a proven ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences.
• Leadership & Collaboration: Strong leadership and conflict resolution skills, with a track record of cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management.
• Problem-Solving & Strategy: Excellent analytical skills with strategic thinking and planning capabilities.
• Tech Stack Fluency: Deep programming familiarity with Java, React, TypeScript, Kotlin, Node.js, SpringBoot, JSF, and MySQL.
• Modern AI Skills: A proven aptitude for AI-enabled tooling, agentic coding, and continuous integration/continuous deployment ($CI/CD$) pipelines.

• 8-12 years of overall experience in software engineering, including 1-3 years of formal leadership/management experience.
• A proven track record of successful, on-time SaaS delivery within an Agile/Scrum environment.
• Experience with cloud technologies, scalable systems, and architectural design.
• Experience with wine production software, the wine industry, or ERP/accounting system integrations is a plus.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field (equivalent practical work experience may be substituted).

• Salary: This role will receive a competitive salary, superannuation, and bonus

• Location: We are a remote-first organization and are open to applicants for both hybrid and fully remote roles. Our AU corporate office is located in Melbourne, AU.

• Flexibility Note: Due to the international nature of our business, this role requires occasional flexibility for after-hours internal strategy calls, client meetings across time zones, or urgent system issues, as well as occasional local or international travel.

Our values shape the way we work together and serve our customers.  They provide insight into our goals of disrupting the industry, figuring out better solutions, and doing so as part of a fast-paced, cohesive, fun-loving, and supportive team. 

• Do the Right Thing 
• Win Together
• Iterate & Learn
• Own It
• Be You

At Encompass, we aim for all of our employees to feel engaged, valued, and free to be who they are at work. We celebrate multiple approaches and points of view. We are committed to growing and empowering a diverse and inclusive community and believe that a team that works together with diverse lived experiences will strengthen our organization.  

We are proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, national origin, marital status, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other protected status.