Scale Engineer

Engineering Manager, Core Services

Engineering Manager · Manager · Full Time

San FranciscoUSD 250k – 350k4mo ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Cursor is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Core Services team, responsible for critical shared services including authentication, webhooks, and backend systems that power the company's AI-driven developer productivity tool. The ideal candidate will drive technical direction, build robust infrastructure, and lead a high-impact team focused on creating scalable and reliable backend services.

Responsibilities

  • Authentication Architecture: Design and implement a scalable authentication system for a widely-used developer tool, ensuring robust security and access management.
  • Backend Infrastructure Management: Own and optimize the infrastructure supporting agent workflows, focusing on end-to-end performance and reliability.
  • Webhook Infrastructure Development: Build a high-throughput webhook server with advanced features like retry semantics, dead-letter queues, and comprehensive observability.
  • Source Control Integration: Develop resilient abstractions for source control providers to ensure system stability across different third-party platforms.
  • Team Leadership: Recruit, mentor, and develop top backend and services engineering talent through strategic hiring, coaching, and high-impact project assignments.
  • Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner closely with product and infrastructure teams to ensure the reliability and scalability of Cursor's backend systems.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Distributed Systems

    Proven experience in designing and managing distributed systems with a focus on reliability and performance

  • Authentication Frameworks

    Expertise in OAuth, JWT, and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) implementations

  • Backend Service Architecture

    Strong understanding of building scalable backend services with clean abstractions and well-defined service contracts

Education

  • Computer Science

    Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field

Experience

  • Engineering Leadership

    Minimum 5-7 years of experience leading engineering teams, with a focus on backend and services infrastructure

  • Production Service Management

    Demonstrated ability to own the full lifecycle of production services from design to deployment and maintenance

Skills

Required

  • Backend Engineering

    Comprehensive understanding of backend service design, implementation, and management

  • Team Leadership

    Strong leadership skills with ability to mentor, coach, and develop engineering talent

  • System Reliability

    Expertise in creating robust, performant, and scalable system architectures

Preferred

  • AI Developer Tools

    Nice to have

    Experience with AI-powered developer productivity platforms

  • Event-Driven Architectures

    Nice to have

    Familiarity with designing and implementing event-driven system architectures

Tech stack

Languages

PythonGo

Frameworks

FastAPI

Databases

PostgreSQL

Tools

KubernetesPrometheus

Other

OAuth

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 250,000 – 350,000

Benefits

  • Competitive Compensation

    Highly competitive salary package for top engineering talent in San Francisco

  • Equity

    Stock options in a promising AI startup with significant growth potential

  • Professional Development

    Opportunities for continuous learning, mentorship, and career advancement

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Initial Screening

    Phone or video call with recruiting team to assess background and fit

  2. 02

    Technical Leadership Interview

    In-depth discussion of engineering management experience and technical leadership approach

  3. 03

    System Design Challenge

    Architectural design session focusing on backend services, authentication, and scalability

  4. 04

    Team Fit Interview

    Meetings with potential team members to evaluate collaborative potential and cultural alignment

  5. 05

    Final Executive Interview

    Discussion with senior leadership about vision, strategy, and potential impact

Full posting

Original listing.

Our mission is to automate coding. The first step in our journey is to build the best tool for professional programmers, using a combination of inventive research, design, and engineering. Our organization is very flat, and our team is small and talent dense. We particularly like people who are truth-seeking, passionate, and creative. We enjoy spirited debate, crazy ideas, and shipping code.

About the Role

You will lead the Core Services team at Cursor, owning the critical shared services that sit between our product surfaces and the infrastructure layer: auth, webhooks, and the backend systems that power agent workflows. Cursor is redefining how developers write code, and your team is what makes that possible at scale. You'll build and operate the systems that every product team depends on, ensuring they are reliable, well-abstracted, and ready for whatever comes next.

You'll set technical direction for authentication, SCM integrations, webhook infrastructure, and end-to-end agent reliability, driving the quality of the services layer that the entire company builds on top of. You'll lead a small, high-impact team, write and review code, and partner closely with product and infrastructure teams to ensure Cursor's backend is rock-solid.

What you’ll do

  • Owning authentication: designing and implementing a scalable auth architecture that secures one of the most widely-used developer tools in the world.

  • Powering the agent backend: owning the infrastructure behind Cursor's agent workflows, optimizing for end-to-end performance and reliability as agents become central to the developer experience.

  • Building a robust webhook server: handling high-throughput event delivery with proper retry semantics, dead-letter queues, and observability so external integrations just work.

  • Hardening SCM integrations: building resilient abstractions over source control providers so Cursor stays rock-solid regardless of third-party conditions.

  • Driving end-to-end agent reliability: partnering with the client and inference teams to improve the full path from user action to agent response.

  • Hiring and growing the team: sourcing, interviewing, and closing top backend and services talent, while developing your engineers through coaching, mentorship, and high-leverage project assignments.

You may be a fit if

  • You have led engineering teams building and operating critical backend services, especially auth systems, API gateways, or webhook infrastructure.

  • You've worked on distributed systems and have strong opinions on reliability and performance of complex multi-step systems.

  • You care deeply about clean abstractions, well-defined service contracts, and making it easy for other engineers to build on top of your work.

  • You have strong software engineering fundamentals and enjoy owning the full lifecycle of production services.

  • Experience with authentication/authorization frameworks (OAuth, JWTs, RBAC), event-driven architectures, or building developer-facing platform services is a plus.

#LI-DNI

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