Job Application for Engineering Manager at Thinking Machines Lab Back to jobs Engineering Manager San Francisco Apply Thinking Machines Lab's mission is to empower humanity through advancing collaborative general intelligence. We're building a future where everyone has access to the knowledge and tools to make AI work for their unique needs and goals. We are scientists, engineers, and builders who’ve created some of the most widely used AI products, including ChatGPT and Character.ai, open-weights models like Mistral, as well as popular open source projects like PyTorch, OpenAI Gym, Fairseq, and Segment Anything.
About
the Role We're hiring an Engineering Manager to lead a team of senior and staff-level engineers across ML infrastructure and product. You will help
the team build and scale systems that are reliable, performant, and easy to operate. This role combines collaboration with hand-on work. You’ll partner with tech leads to set the technical direction for your team and own its execution. You should also be ready to go deep on system design and contribute directly when needed. What You’ll Do Lead and grow a team of senior and staff-level engineers, setting clear expectations and maintaining a high bar for execution. Own architecture, system design, and long-term technical direction for your team's systems, with emphasis on reliability and performance. Contribute directly to design reviews, prototyping, and debugging critical issues. Partner with researchers and product teams to define roadmaps and prioritize work. Hire and close senior engineering talent. Mentor engineers into technical leaders. Skills and
Qualifications Minimum
qualifications: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent industry experience in computer science, engineering, or similar. 8+ years of experience building and scaling production systems, including system design and distributed systems. 3+ years of engineering management experience in high-growth environments. Preferred
qualifications — we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all preferred
qualifications, but at least some : Experience managing teams of senior or staff-level engineers. Background in infrastructure, systems engineering, or developer productivity. Familiarity with AI/ML systems, data infrastructure, or high-performance computing. Track record of building or contributing to widely used systems, platforms, or tools. Logistics Location: This role is based in San Francisco, California.
Compensation: Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $400,000 - $500,000 USD. Visa sponsorship: We sponsor visas. While we can't guarantee success for every candidate or role, if you're the right fit, we're committed to working through the visa process together.
Benefits: Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision
benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed. As set forth in Thinking Machines' Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law. Create a Job Alert Interested in building your career at Thinking Machines Lab? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email. Create alert Apply for this job * indicates a required field Autofill with MyGreenhouse First Name * Last Name * Preferred First Name Email * Phone Country * Phone * Location (City) * Locate me Resume/CV * Attach Attach Dropbox Google Drive Enter manually Enter manually Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf Education School * Select... Degree * Select... Discipline * Select... Start date year End date year Add another LinkedIn Profile Link * Please provide the URL to your LinkedIn; if you don't have one, please write "none". Github Link * Please provide the URL to your Github; if you don't have one, please write "none". Personal Website About You * Please provide the URL to your personal website, Google Scholar, etc if you have one. Put "none" if you do not. Current Company * Please tell us the name of your current employer (today if you are employed). Put "none" if this does not apply to you; for example, if you are in school or not currently employed -- this does not disqualify you. Feel free to enter previous roles in the field below in "Past Company 1". Current Title or Role * Please enter your current title at your current employer. If you are not currently employed (or in school etc) please enter "none" and feel free to enter previous roles in the field below in "Past Company". Past Company 1 * Please enter the Company name of your most recent previous employer. If you have not worked at another company before your current one, please enter “none”. Past Company Title or Role * Please enter your title at your most recent previous employer. If you have not worked at another company before your current one, please enter “none”. Past Company 2 If you would like, please enter the Company name of your second previous employer. If you have not worked at another company before your current or previous one, please enter “none” or skip this question. Past Company Title or Role 2 If you would like, please enter the Title or Job of your second previous employer. If you have not worked at another company before your current or previous one, please enter “none” or skip this question. What type of software engineer are you? * Analytics Infrastructure Engineer Android Engineer API Engineer Backend Engineer Compute Infrastructure Engineer Data Engineer Data Infrastructure Engineer Developer Productivity Engineer Distributed Training Engineer Embedded Systems Engineer Frontend Engineer Fullstack Generalist Engineer Growth Engineer Engineer iOS Engineer Infrastructure Engineer Kernels Engineer Mobile Engineer Product Engineer Production Infrastructure Engineer Security Engineer Site Reliability Engineer Storage Infrastructure Engineer Supercomputing Engineer Other Select all that apply where you have actively completed work in and would be able to interview for in a technical interview. This will help us when picking between teams or projects! If you selected other, what areas did we not include that you have expertise in? * (Optional) List 3 projects you're proud of. Please list 3 projects you're proud of, using 1 sentence each. Feel free to add a link if helpful. We will send this to the hiring team when reviewing your application. Will you now or in the future require sponsorship for employment visa status in the United States? * Select... (Optional) Other notes Voluntary Self-Identification For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file. As set forth in Thinking Machines Lab’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law. Gender Select... Are you Hispanic/Latino? Select... Race & Ethnicity Definitions If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows: A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to
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Salary
$400,000 - $500,000
Location
San Francisco
Experience
8+ years
Total raised
$2.0B
Last stage
Seed
Investors
Mira Murati
Founder and CEO
John Schulman
Cofounder
Barret Zoph
VP of Research
No applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.
A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.
I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.
If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.