Engineering Manager

Engineering Manager

Location: San Francisco Type: Full-time, On-site

Overview

AfterQuery builds the data and evaluation systems that power frontier AI models. In 14 months, we scaled from 0 to $100M ARR and raised a $30M Series A at a $300M valuation. Today, every leading AI lab uses our datasets and reinforcement learning environments to encode and scale real-world expertise.

We’re focused on one core problem: the most valuable knowledge in the world lives inside people’s heads, and models still struggle to use it. We build the systems that capture, structure, and evaluate that expertise at scale.

We’re hiring an Engineering Manager who’s still a strong IC. You’ll lead engineers, stay hands-on in the code, and drive execution across critical systems. This is an ownership role, not a coordination role.

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership: Manage a small group of engineers and own their output end-to-end
• Hands-on Development: Write code, review systems, and contribute directly to critical builds
• Execution: Drive projects forward quickly while maintaining a high bar for quality
• Hiring & Mentorship: Recruit, mentor, and develop engineers to raise the overall team bar
• Technical Ownership: Ensure systems are scalable, clean, and reusable
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with ops, domain experts, and customers
• 50/50 Split between building + managing engineers

Required Qualifications

• Strong background as a senior or staff-level engineer
• Experience managing or leading high-performing engineering teams (5–15 engineers)
• Proven ability to ship production systems in fast-paced environments
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, rapidly changing contexts
• Desire to remain hands-on with code and system design

Not a Fit If

• You don’t want to code anymore
• You need a lot of process or structure
• You’ve been far from the code for a while