Engineering Manager, Events Analytics Platform

Engineering Manager · Manager · Full Time

San Francisco, CaliforniaUSD 220k – 450k2w ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Lead the Events Analytics Platform (EAP) team at Sentry, driving the architecture and scaling of mission-critical distributed data systems that power observability for 4 million developers worldwide. As an Engineering Manager, you'll manage and mentor a high-performing team while directing the evolution of data storage, query optimization, and analytical backends that support Sentry's AI-native future. This highly visible role requires 10+ years of software engineering expertise with 4+ years of people management experience, along with deep technical proficiency in data platforms, distributed systems, and scaling challenges at enterprise scale.

Responsibilities

  • Team Leadership and Development: Grow and develop a team of engineers with high expectations for ownership and impact. Mentor engineers through career development, performance management, and coaching, with particular focus on enabling junior engineers to advance into senior technical roles.
  • Technical Strategy and Direction: Set the technical and strategic direction for the Events Analytics Platform team, balancing short-term system stability with long-term architectural evolution. Drive decision-making around core infrastructure investments and technology choices.
  • Feature Development and Architecture: 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 systems at scale.
  • AI and Scale Enablement: Ensure the Events Analytics Platform can support workload demands of AI agents and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that unlock new AI capabilities. Guide the unification of all event data types (errors, transactions, spans, profiles, replays, metrics) into EAP and enable fast, complex cross-event querying at scale.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with cross-functional teams including Product Engineering, Streaming infrastructure, Production Engineering, Security, and Compliance to align platform evolution with company strategy and operational requirements.
  • Operational Excellence and Incident Management: Lead the team through incidents, postmortems, and scaling challenges while fostering operational excellence. Establish reliability standards and drive continuous improvement in system observability and resilience.
  • Team Culture and Inclusion: Build a healthy and collaborative team culture rooted in growth, accountability, and inclusion. Create psychological safety and foster an environment where engineers can take ownership and drive impact.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Query Optimization and Analytics

    Deep expertise in query optimization, execution planning, and analytical query patterns for complex cross-dimensional analysis at scale.

  • Storage System Architecture

    Technical proficiency in modern analytical storage patterns, columnar storage engines, compression techniques, and storage-compute separation architectures.

  • Distributed Systems Design

    Understanding of distributed systems principles including consistency, availability, partition tolerance, replication strategies, and failure handling in large-scale deployments.

  • Programming Languages

    Proficiency with Python, Rust, or similar systems-level programming languages used in infrastructure and platform development.

  • Observability and Monitoring

    Familiarity with observability concepts, event-driven architectures, and developer tools ecosystems. Understanding of telemetry data collection, aggregation, and analysis patterns.

Education

  • Computer Science or Related Field

    Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field preferred (equivalent professional experience may substitute).

Experience

  • Software Engineering Leadership

    10+ years of industry experience in software engineering, with demonstrated success in building and shipping production systems at scale.

  • People Management Experience

    4+ years of direct people management experience including career development, performance management, and hiring. Track record of growing engineers into senior roles.

  • Distributed Systems Expertise

    Experience designing, building, or operating distributed systems with focus on query optimization, performance tuning, and scaling data-intensive workloads to handle massive traffic volumes.

  • Data Platform Experience

    Strong technical background working with data platforms, storage systems, or analytical backends such as ClickHouse, Apache Pinot, Druid, or similar technologies handling high-throughput event streams.

  • Production Scaling Challenges

    Proven experience tackling challenges of continuously scaling systems as traffic grows, including database optimization, query planning, and infrastructure planning for exponential growth.

Skills

Required

  • Leadership and Mentorship

    Demonstrated ability to lead engineering teams, develop talent, foster psychological safety, and create high-performing cultures rooted in accountability and continuous learning.

  • Technical Communication

    Excellent communication skills with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences including executive leadership, product teams, and technical engineers.

  • Distributed Systems Fundamentals

    Deep understanding of distributed systems challenges including scalability, reliability, consistency models, and operational patterns required for enterprise data platforms.

  • Analytical Backend Platforms

    Hands-on experience with analytical storage and querying technologies such as ClickHouse, Apache Pinot, Druid, or similar column-oriented databases and OLAP systems.

  • Data Pipeline Architecture

    Experience designing and operating data pipelines, stream processing, and real-time analytics infrastructure for handling high-volume event ingestion and processing.

  • Strategic Planning

    Ability to develop technical roadmaps, balance short-term operational needs with long-term architectural investments, and align team efforts with company strategy.

Preferred

  • AI and ML Systems

    Nice to have

    Experience working with AI systems, machine learning infrastructure, or supporting AI workloads in production environments. Familiarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers or AI agent architectures is a plus.

  • Observability Platform Expertise

    Nice to have

    Background working on observability platforms, application performance monitoring (APM), error tracking systems, or developer-focused tooling that processes massive volumes of telemetry data.

  • Open Source Contribution

    Nice to have

    Active contributions to open-source infrastructure or data systems projects. Familiarity with open-source development workflows and community-driven development models.

  • Incident Command and Operations

    Nice to have

    Experience leading incident response, conducting postmortems, and driving operational excellence in production environments with high availability requirements.

  • Cost Optimization

    Nice to have

    Track record of optimizing infrastructure costs through efficient data storage, query optimization, and resource allocation strategies in large-scale systems.

Tech stack

Languages

PythonRust

Frameworks

Apache KafkaStream Processing Frameworks

Databases

ClickHouseApache PinotApache DruidPostgreSQL

Tools

KubernetesDockerGrafanaGit and Version Control

Other

Distributed Query EnginesData Compression and EncodingTelemetry and Observability StandardsAPI Design

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 220,000 – 450,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Equity Grants

    Opportunity to participate in Sentry's equity compensation program as part of a growing, mission-driven company with significant upside potential.

  • Incentive Compensation

    Performance-based bonus structure aligned with individual and team achievement of strategic objectives and OKRs.

  • Comprehensive Health Insurance

    Group health insurance coverage including medical, dental, and vision plans with competitive employer contributions.

  • Paid Time Off

    Generous paid vacation, sick leave, and holiday policies supporting work-life balance and personal well-being.

  • Professional Development

    Investment in continuous learning through training budgets, conference attendance, and access to educational resources for engineering and leadership skill development.

  • Remote Work Flexibility

    Flexible work arrangements supporting distributed teams and enabling work from preferred locations aligned with Sentry's operating model.

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Application and Initial Screening

    Submit resume and cover letter highlighting relevant engineering leadership experience, data platform expertise, and team building accomplishments. Hiring team conducts initial screening for core qualifications and career trajectory alignment.

  2. 02

    Technical Screen with Engineering Lead

    Conversation with current EAP team engineering lead or senior engineer to assess technical depth in distributed systems, data platforms, and query optimization. Discussion covers experience with specific technologies (ClickHouse, Pinot, Druid) and scaling challenges.

  3. 03

    Leadership and Organizational Design Interview

    Conversation with head of engineering or director focused on team development philosophy, approach to mentoring junior engineers into senior roles, performance management strategies, and building inclusive team culture.

  4. 04

    Strategic Alignment Discussion

    Meeting with product leadership and stakeholders to assess understanding of Sentry's product strategy, observability platform vision, and ability to align team roadmap with company priorities. Discussion of cross-functional collaboration approach.

  5. 05

    System Design and Technical Deep Dive

    Extended technical conversation covering system design decisions, architectural trade-offs in large-scale data platforms, query optimization strategies, and approach to scaling as traffic grows exponentially.

  6. 06

    Hiring Manager Final Round

    Conversation with Engineering Manager's direct manager covering overall fit, growth trajectory, compensation expectations, and logistical details around role, location, and start date.

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 $450,000. 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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