Senior Engineering Manager

About VSCO

For years, we've helped photographers create their work. Now we're building what comes next.

VSCO exists for photographers. Not as a side feature, not as an afterthought, but as the whole point. We build the connected system photographers rely on, and we've spent over a decade earning the trust of a global creative community that takes the craft seriously.

Photography is at an inflection point. AI is reshaping what's possible for creative work, and that's where our mission shines. VSCO is building the full photographer's workflow: from creating and editing your work, to delivering it to clients, to running your business. All of it built thoughtfully, with photographers leading the way. We believe the future of photography tools creates more space for creativity, handling the busy work so photographers can focus on the craft.

If you care about craft, community, and what technology can unlock for creative people, this is the work. We're a mission-driven and focused company where your work ships quickly, is meaningful, and reaches tens of millions of people worldwide. You'll have a real say in what we build and how we build it. We hire people who don't wait to be asked, naturally connect the dots, care about the quality of what they ship, and believe the best outcomes come from building together.

About you

We’re looking for a Senior Engineering Manager to lead a team of server, web, and full-stack engineers building a business management platform designed for professional photographers, offering tools for client management, scheduling, invoicing, and workflow automation to help streamline and grow their businesses.

The day to day

• Leading and growing engineers. Hiring, coaching, and developing the team. Structuring the team so the right people are in the right roles, placing your strongest technical contributors where they'll have the most impact, and helping everyone advance their careers.
• Stay hands-on technically and lead as a player-coach. Review code, directly contribute, and maintain a deep understanding of the systems your team owns, including how they integrate with the broader VSCO platform. By staying close to the work, you'll bring informed perspectives to technical decisions, guide architectural direction, and help the team deliver high-quality solutions.
• Owning outcomes end-to-end. Defining and refining the roadmap with your team and XFN partners, breaking down work, setting success metrics, and holding the team accountable for delivering high-quality results.
• Removing obstacles. Embracing "all problems are my problem." When your team or XFN partners hit a blocker, you help them get unstuck, whether that means escalating, adjusting scope, or having hard conversations.
• Collaborating across VSCO. Partnering with product, design, data science, and other engineering teams to cut through ambiguity, design shared primitives, and shape a shared product vision.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with meaningful time as a hands-on IC building production systems at scale.
• 5+ years of engineering management or technical leadership experience (including people management without the formal EM title) on user-facing products.
• Strong familiarity with at least a couple of major parts of our stack: Go, TypeScript/React/Node.js. You should be able to write, review, and reason about code across these stacks.
• Product-sense that goes beyond management. You'll be collaborating with PMs and designers daily, and we need someone who can reason about scope, suggest alternatives, and help shape what we build - not just execute on a spec.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience applying AI tools and workflows in software development, coupled with a track record of leading team adoption and embedding AI-enabled practices that improve productivity, engineering velocity, and operational efficiency.
• Commitment to people leadership, with demonstrated outcomes in facilitating team success and fostering a culture of technical rigor.
• Ownership mentality. You resolve blockers for your team and XFN partners, drive decisions, and hold yourself accountable for the team's success.

Nice to have

• Experience leading large technological migration initiatives
• Experience building business tools like CRM systems
• Experience with distributed systems

Job Perks

• Hybrid work with an office in San Francisco, CA
• Regular in-person events events to connect and collaborate
• Competitive salary & equity
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and families
• Flexible Time Off
• Company-paid parental, medical and caregiver leave
• Other perks including mental health resources and tech reimbursements

Compensation

The base salary for this position will vary based on several factors, such as relevant experience, location and your approved internal leveling assessed during the interview process. The base salary range for this role is $240,000 - $255,000. Salary is one component of our total compensation package. This position also qualifies for equity (i.e. stock options) and is eligible for discretionary bonuses based on performance.

The benefits available for this position include flexible time off, a 401K retirement plan, insurance (medical, dental, vision, life/AD&D, short and long term disability), and 11 paid holidays. We also provide paid sick time as required by state and local law. Additional benefits and perks contained in our standard employee benefits package are also offered for this position.

Please note:

As part of our hiring process, we conduct pre-employment background checks in compliance with federal, state, and local laws. Employment is contingent upon the successful completion of this background check, which includes state and federal criminal records checks, sex offender registry searches, and other relevant checks as permitted by law.

Be careful of fraudulent job posts.

If you receive outreach from someone claiming to work for VSCO, please verify they are communicating through the proper channels (vsco.co email domain or through Greenhouse).

Note that VSCO will never ask for financial information or sensitive personal information during the application process.