Scan your resume against ATS criteria for this Senior Engineering Manager, Platform role at Givedirectly.
GiveDirectly has delivered more than $1B in cash directly to 2+ million people living in poverty across 15 countries since 2011. We believe cash transfers are of the most scalable, cost-effective, and dignified forms of aid, with the https://www.givedirectly.org/gdresearch/ research to back it up. Our work has been covered by https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024/01/10/givedirectly-does-what-it-says-on-the-tin The Economist, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/12/07/1217478771/its-one-of-the-biggest-experiments-in-fighting-global-poverty-now-the-results-ar NPR, https://www.ted.com/talks/rory_stewart_to_end_extreme_poverty_give_cash_not_advice TED, and https://www.givedirectly.org/washingtonpost-apr-2024/ The Washington Post. We are of https://time.com/collection/time100-most-influential-companies/2026/givedirectly/ Time100’s Most Influential Companies of 2026.
Our culture is candid, analytical, and non-hierarchical. We support high ownership and real professional growth. Curious about what it's really like to work here? Read our https://www.givedirectly.org/givedirectly-values/ values and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbdS9vB_XYg hear from the people who do. If they resonate, this could be a great fit!
As an example, 6PM East Africa Time is 11AM US Eastern time in the summer and 10AM in the winter. In practice, if you are in the Eastern US timezone, that means being regularly available for 8AM meetings and some 7AM. We know people have commitments like school drop-offs, so you’re encouraged to set a schedule that works for you—as long as there’s sufficient overlap with the team.
We’re hiring three Senior Engineering Managers to own domains of our cash delivery platform at a moment of rapid growth: we’re doubling our engineering team over the coming year and expect to hit $1B in revenue in 2026, with significant growth forecast for 2027.
You'll own domain of our cash delivery platform — payments, core platform, or data collection (see team charters below) — the software product that is at the heart of delivering cash to recipients. We recently launched a platform rebuild as a greenfield project, and the work ahead is scaling it from initial launch to delivering $5B/year. This is a management role close to the work: you'll directly manage a team of 5–7 senior engineers, partner with product counterparts on roadmap and delivery, own the operational details (on-call, incident response), and stay close enough to the code to pressure-test designs and represent tradeoffs in roadmap decisions.
You will own maintaining and scaling a strong engineering culture on your team through rapid growth: recruiting and retaining a high talent density team, and building strong operating processes that encourage open debate in search of the best outcomes for recipients rather than attachment to being right or looking good; continuous learning, improvement, and adoption of new tools; deep product ownership in service of impact for recipients; and strong judgment about tradeoffs. You'll set a high technical quality bar, pressure-testing designs and tradeoffs while still giving a very senior team high autonomy.
You optimize for recipient impact, not the most interesting technical problem. We're not driven by hot new technical trends; we're building the hard tech that matters to recipients — integrations with mobile money rails and delivery in low-connectivity contexts.
You'll own the interface between engineering and team members who haven't worked heavily with a product development organization before. That means learning our programs and the realities of our field teams, and working with partner teams to build our development practices, whether building trust that an MVP is a starting point rather than a final answer, or helping teams see why it’s worth taking time out of their urgent delivery goals to give feedback on a demo or try something new.
As GiveDirectly scales, technology is what allows us to reach more people without breaking. Your leadership means getting more cash to the people who need it most.
Level: Senior Manager
Travel Requirement: Must be able to travel ~3-4 times per year to of our countries of operation for team retreats or field visits
Team charters:
We're hiring Senior Engineering Manager for each of three teams. During the process we'll match candidates to charters based on experience and interest — you don't need to pick to apply.
Data collection: owns how we identify and enroll recipients: survey and enrollment tooling built for low-connectivity, offline-first field contexts, and, in time, increasingly direct-to-recipient communications. This team’s work shapes how recipients experience our programs – and ultimately the operational mechanics of delivering at scale.
What you’ll do:
Directly manage a team growing to 5–7 senior engineers — 1:1s, goal setting, feedback, career development, performance management — and build the team itself: you'll drive recruiting for several of your own hires in your first year and own their
Own your domain’s technical outcomes: delivery, reliability, and the consequences of its big technical bets – in close partnership with senior and staff engineers and your product counterpart
Partner with product to balance feature development with tech debt drawdown, infrastructure investments, and other efforts to improve velocity and drive compounding progress
Drive operational excellence, including on-call, incident response, code quality, testing, AI, and deployment practices
Protect and scale the culture as we grow: open debate, product ownership, continuous improvement, and strong engineering foundations
Represent your team with stakeholders and leadership: translate technical realities into business decisions and vice versa, and partner with diverse stakeholders to create the enabling environment for product development
Set the technical quality bar: stay close enough to the technical work to weigh in on architecture, review designs, and help the team make sound trade-offs, without becoming the bottleneck
https://www.givedirectly.org/givedirectly-values/
and active demonstration of our core competencies: emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through, and fostering inclusivity. We welcome and strongly encourage applications from candidates who have personal or professional experience in the low-income and/or historically marginalized communities that we serve.
Language Requirement: English
3+ years managing software engineers through full delivery cycles
8+ years of overall industry experience building production software, with a strong backend foundation (databases, cloud services, APIs)
Demonstrated ability to recruit, coach, develop, and retain engineers, building and retaining a talent-dense and inclusive team during periods of high growth
Track record of building a strong engineering culture including candid, ego-free debate, deep product ownership, and continuously raising the bar on craft and tooling (including agentic engineering)
You enable speed through focus and create clarity in ambiguity: cutting through complexity to the strategic kernel and shielding the team from distraction, so a senior team can move fast and autonomously
Strong technical judgment driven by the mission, not ego: you can pressure-test architecture decisions with very senior engineers, have made consequential calls and lived with the results, and weigh technical and non-technical tradeoffs by recipient impact
Energized to build product-development fluency in an organization that's relatively new to it: you've successfully partnered with non-technical stakeholders and leaders, and you’re excited by this, rather than daunted by it
At GiveDirectly, we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third party salary aggregator to calculate what we believe to be competitive pay based on role, location, and cost of living. We also have a no negotiation policy to ensure we are paying staff equitably across roles.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1onxCdQX_DacG0812Wr99LF6zlMTg7RTP/view?usp=sharing
Unless otherwise noted, the benefits stipend may be used to cover benefits or taken as additional taxable income.
This role is fully remote, so if you are not based in the US, UK or Kenya, we will share an estimated salary benchmark for the country you are based in during the hiring process.
#LI-REMOTE
GiveDirectly is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to the person’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
Flagging for US applicants: We invite you to "https://app.getguru.com/card/TrxrEknc/US-Federal-Law-on-Workplace-Discrimination Know Your Rights" as an applicant.
As a global organization working with communities to eliminate extreme poverty, GiveDirectly takes the safeguarding of its recipients, staff, and partners seriously. To that end, GiveDirectly is a member of the https://misconduct-disclosure-scheme.org/ Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, and will systematically check with previous employers about any abuse or misconduct related matters involving potential new hires. We may also employ other robust pre-hire screens, including in-depth reference checks, criminal background checks, and sanctions screens.
These efforts help us continue to build and maintain trust with the communities we work with, and prevent abuse to our recipients and staff.
We are committed to fostering an inclusive and accessible work environment. If you require any accommodations during the application or interview process, or to perform the essential functions of the role, please email us at [email protected] with the email subject “Accommodation Needed”. We will work with you to ensure reasonable accommodations are made to support your needs.
Take a look at our https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JRyU81RnTGHQrw9nHTPw7oe_urTDh9JT/view?usp=sharing Candidate Application Prep Guide
Know the right person for this role? Please consider
. We offer a reward of $3,000 for a Senior Manager or above role, and $500 for a Manager role, paid if we end up hiring your referral. Thank you for sending great people our way!
How to apply for Senior Engineering Manager, Platform at Givedirectly?
Click the "Apply on Company Website" button on this page to submit your application directly on the employer's official portal.
What is the salary for this role?
The salary for this role is $1 per annum.
What experience is required?
3+ years of experience is required.
Is this position still open?
Yes, currently active and accepting applications.
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