Engineering Manager, Data Platform

Engineering Manager · Manager · Full Time

San Francisco, CaliforniaUSD 220k – 300k3d ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Lead a high-impact engineering team on Sentry's Events Analytics Platform (EAP), which powers how all of Sentry's event data—errors, transactions, spans, profiles, replays, and metrics—is stored, queried, and analyzed at scale for 4 million developers worldwide. This senior leadership role combines strategic platform architecture with people management, requiring expertise in distributed data systems and a passion for mentoring engineers while driving the evolution of Sentry's observability platform and AI capabilities through Seer.

Responsibilities

  • Team Leadership and Development: Grow and develop a team of engineers with high expectations for ownership and impact. Focus on mentoring junior engineers into senior roles, conducting regular career development conversations, managing performance, and building a healthy, collaborative team culture rooted in growth, accountability, and inclusion.
  • Technical Strategy and Architecture: Set the technical and strategic direction for the Events Analytics Platform, balancing short-term stability with long-term architectural evolution. Drive architectural decisions that enable the platform to scale as Sentry's traffic grows and support new capabilities like AI agents and MCP servers.
  • Core Platform Feature Development: Lead development of critical EAP features including support for complex analytical queries, dynamic routing logic across fidelity levels, storage and compute separation, and modern patterns for analytical storage. Ensure the platform can efficiently handle queries across massive volumes of data.
  • AI and Advanced Capabilities: Ensure the Events Analytics Platform can support the evolving workload demands of AI agents, MCP servers, and Sentry's Seer AI push, unlocking new AI capabilities and enabling intelligent observability features for developers worldwide.
  • Data Unification and Cross-Event Querying: Guide the strategic unification of all event data types (errors, transactions, spans, profiles, replays, metrics) into a cohesive Events Analytics Platform and enable fast, complex cross-event querying at scale to give developers complete context for issue debugging.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with cross-functional teams including Product Engineering, Streaming, Production Engineering, Security, and Compliance to ensure the platform meets both technical excellence and organizational requirements.
  • Operational Excellence and Incident Leadership: Lead the team through incidents, postmortems, and scaling challenges. Foster a culture of operational excellence, ensuring system stability and reliability for a platform serving over 4 million developers worldwide.
  • Scalability and Performance: Drive continuous scaling initiatives to support Sentry's growing traffic and usage patterns. Address complex querying and storage challenges at massive scale, ensuring the platform remains performant and cost-efficient.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Distributed Systems Architecture

    Strong understanding of distributed systems design patterns, including sharding, replication, consensus algorithms, and fault tolerance mechanisms.

  • Data Storage and Analytical Databases

    Deep knowledge of modern analytical databases and data platforms. Experience with columnar storage formats, OLAP systems, time-series optimization, and analytical query engines.

  • Query Optimization and Performance Tuning

    Expertise in SQL query optimization, execution plan analysis, indexing strategies, and performance profiling for analytical workloads.

  • Large-Scale Data Processing

    Experience with systems that process terabytes to petabytes of data efficiently. Understanding of batch processing, streaming pipelines, and real-time analytics architectures.

  • Python or Rust Programming

    Proficiency with Python, Rust, or similar systems programming languages useful for data platform development, infrastructure tooling, and performance-critical components.

Education

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field

    Formal education in computer science, software engineering, or a related technical discipline preferred to demonstrate foundational knowledge in algorithms, distributed systems, and computer architecture.

Experience

  • Senior Software Engineering Experience

    10+ years of industry experience in software engineering, demonstrating deep technical expertise and a track record of building scalable systems and solving complex technical challenges.

  • People Management and Leadership

    4+ years of people management experience with demonstrated ability to lead, develop, and mentor engineers. Must have experience with career development conversations, performance management, and building high-performing teams.

  • Data Platform and Storage Systems

    Strong technical background in data platforms, analytical backends, or storage systems. Ideally with hands-on experience with technologies like ClickHouse, Apache Pinot, Apache Druid, or similar distributed analytical databases used in observability and analytics contexts.

  • Distributed Systems and Query Optimization

    Proven experience with distributed systems architecture, query optimization techniques, and scaling data-intensive workloads. Understanding of trade-offs between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance (CAP theorem) and performance optimization strategies.

  • Scalability and Performance Engineering

    Track record of tackling continuous scaling challenges as organizations and data volumes grow. Experience optimizing systems for performance, throughput, and cost efficiency at massive scale.

  • Cross-Functional Collaboration

    Experience working collaboratively with product, infrastructure, and security teams to align technical decisions with business objectives and organizational constraints.

Skills

Required

  • Engineering Leadership and Team Management

    Proven ability to lead, mentor, and develop engineering teams with focus on career growth, performance management, and building collaborative team culture.

  • Technical Architecture and Systems Design

    Strong capability to design scalable systems, make architectural trade-off decisions, and communicate technical complexity clearly across organizational boundaries.

  • Distributed Data Systems Expertise

    Deep understanding of distributed databases, analytical platforms, storage systems, and the ability to guide teams building and scaling such systems.

  • Communication and Stakeholder Management

    Excellent communication skills with ability to articulate technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences including engineers, product managers, executives, and cross-functional teams.

  • Incident and Crisis Leadership

    Experience leading teams through production incidents and scaling challenges with poise, driving effective postmortems and continuous improvement.

  • Strategic Thinking and Roadmap Ownership

    Ability to balance short-term stability with long-term architectural evolution, set clear technical direction, and align team efforts with organizational strategy.

Preferred

  • Observability, Monitoring, or Developer Tools Experience

    Nice to have

    Familiarity with observability platforms, application monitoring, developer tools ecosystem, or event-driven systems, providing valuable context for Sentry's mission and products.

  • ClickHouse, Apache Pinot, or Apache Druid Experience

    Nice to have

    Hands-on experience with specific modern analytical databases commonly used in observability and analytics platforms, demonstrating practical knowledge of production-grade systems.

  • AI and Machine Learning Systems Integration

    Nice to have

    Experience supporting or integrating with AI agents and ML systems, valuable for understanding how the platform enables AI capabilities like Sentry's Seer.

  • Open Source Contribution and Community Building

    Nice to have

    Active involvement in open source projects or community building, aligning with Sentry's open-source ethos and developer-first philosophy.

  • Rust or Python Proficiency

    Nice to have

    Strong programming skills in Python, Rust, or similar languages valuable for evaluating technical solutions and mentoring engineers on platform development.

  • High-Scale Infrastructure Experience

    Nice to have

    Previous experience at companies operating petabyte-scale infrastructure or handling millions of requests per second, directly applicable to Sentry's platform challenges.

Tech stack

Languages

PythonRust

Frameworks

ClickHouseApache PinotApache Druid

Databases

Time-Series Databases (e.g., ClickHouse Native)Distributed Column StoresEvent-Driven Data Stores

Tools

Kafka or Event Streaming SystemsKubernetes or Container OrchestrationObservability and Monitoring ToolsQuery Analysis and Performance Profiling Tools

Other

MCP Server ArchitectureDistributed Systems PatternsData Fidelity and Routing LogicStorage and Compute Separation

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 220,000 – 300,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Equity Grants

    Participate in Sentry's equity compensation program to share in the company's long-term growth and success as an application monitoring leader in the observability space.

  • Paid Time Off

    Competitive paid time off policy enabling work-life balance and recovery time for strategic leadership responsibilities.

  • Group Health Insurance Coverage

    Comprehensive health insurance benefits including medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family.

  • Incentive Compensation

    Performance-based bonus structure tied to team and company objectives, with potential for additional rewards based on leadership impact.

  • Inclusive Culture & Accessibility

    Sentry is committed to building a diverse, inclusive workplace where every teammate can thrive, with dedicated support for accommodations and accessibility needs.

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Application Review and Screening

    Initial review of your background, experience in data platforms, leadership history, and alignment with the role's technical and management requirements.

  2. 02

    Recruiter Conversation

    Phone or video conversation with Sentry's recruiting team to discuss your interest, career motivations, remote/location preferences, and expectations for the Engineering Manager role.

  3. 03

    Hiring Manager Technical Discussion

    In-depth conversation with the hiring manager covering your technical expertise in distributed systems, data platforms, architectural decision-making, and leadership philosophy for managing high-performing engineering teams.

  4. 04

    Cross-Functional Leadership Panel

    Meeting with team leads from Product Engineering, Production Engineering, and other cross-functional partners to assess collaboration style, communication clarity, and alignment with organizational objectives.

  5. 05

    Executive Leadership Round

    Conversation with senior engineering or product leadership to discuss long-term vision, strategic thinking, scaling challenges, and how you approach building platforms that support company growth.

  6. 06

    Team Meeting and Culture Fit

    Optional meeting with members of the Events Analytics Platform team to understand team dynamics, get to know potential direct reports, and ensure cultural alignment with Sentry's inclusive, collaborative values.

Full posting

Original listing.

About Sentry

Software runs the world and the pace is faster than ever. Sentry helps developers fix errors and performance issues before users notice, so teams can spend less time firefighting and more time building.

Trusted by 200,000+ organizations, Sentry is today’s application monitoring standard and our team is building its AI-native future.

About the role

Sentry provides developer-first observability to over 4 million developers worldwide. The Events Analytics Platform (EAP) team is at the heart of that mission: it powers how all of Sentry's event data, such as errors, transactions, spans, profiles, replays, and metrics, is stored, queried, and analyzed. It also powers Sentry's latest AI push, Seer.

The EAP team makes it possible for developers to efficiently search and debug across massive volumes of data, providing the context needed to understand and fix issues quickly. This team is also a cornerstone of Sentry's long-term strategy to become a context assembly and telemetry platform that unifies different signals so developers can see the complete picture.

As an engineering manager on the EAP team, you will lead a group of engineers building and scaling one of Sentry's most critical data platforms. You will be responsible for driving architectural evolution, ensuring system stability, and mentoring a talented team. This is a highly visible leadership role with direct ties to Sentry's long-term product and platform strategy.

What you'll do

  • Grow and develop a team of engineers with high expectations for ownership and impact

  • Set the technical and strategic direction for the team, balancing short-term stability with long-term architectural evolution

  • Drive development of core EAP features, including support for complex analytical queries, dynamic routing logic across fidelity levels, storage and compute separation, and modern patterns for analytical storage

  • Ensure EAP can support the workload demands of AI agents and MCP servers that unlock new AI capabilities for Sentry

  • Guide the unification of all event data into EAP and enable fast, complex cross-event querying at scale

  • Partner closely with cross-functional teams including Product Engineering, Streaming, Production Engineering, Security, and Compliance

  • Lead the team through incidents, postmortems, and scaling challenges while fostering operational excellence

  • Build a healthy and collaborative team culture rooted in growth, accountability, and inclusion

You'll love this job if you

  • Enjoy mentoring and developing engineers, especially helping junior engineers grow into senior roles

  • Get excited by designing and running large-scale distributed data systems where performance and reliability matter

  • Are passionate about tackling the challenges of continuously scaling as Sentry's traffic grows

  • Like tackling complex querying and storage challenges at massive scale

  • Thrive on cross-functional collaboration with product and infrastructure teams

  • Want to work on a highly strategic team with significant visibility that shapes the future of Sentry's platform

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of industry experience in software engineering, including 4+ years of people management experience with career development and performance management

  • Strong technical background in data platforms, storage systems, or analytical backends (for example, ClickHouse, Pinot, or Druid)

  • Experience with distributed systems, query optimization, or scaling data-intensive workloads

  • Excellent communication skills with the ability to clearly articulate technical concepts to diverse audiences

  • Proficiency with Python, Rust, or a similar programming language is a plus

  • Familiarity with observability, developer tools, or event-driven systems is a plus

The base salary range (or hourly wage range, if applicable) that Sentry reasonably expects to pay for this position is $220,000 to $300,000. A successful candidate’s actual base salary (or hourly wage) amount will be determined by a variety of relevant factors including, without limitation, the candidate’s work location, education, work and other relevant experience, skills, and job-related knowledge. A successful candidate will be eligible to participate in Sentry’s employee benefit plans/programs applicable to the candidate’s position (including incentive compensation, equity grants, paid time off, and group health insurance coverage). See Sentry Benefits for more details about the Company’s benefit plans/programs.

Equal Opportunity at Sentry

Sentry is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to its employees and candidates for employment regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, or other legally-protected characteristic. This commitment includes the provision of reasonable accommodations to employees and candidates for employment with physical or mental disabilities who require such accommodations in order to (a) perform the essential functions of their jobs, or (b) seek employment with Sentry. We strive to build a diverse team, with an inclusive culture where every teammate can thrive. Sentry is an open-source company because we believe that everyone, everywhere, should have the ability and tools to make great software. Software should be accessible. That starts with making our industry accessible.

If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [email protected].

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