Engineering Manager

About 8020REI

8020REI is a predictive data and marketing intelligence platform for acquisition-driven businesses. We started in real estate investing, grew into home services, and keep expanding wherever customer acquisition runs on data.

Using machine learning and the 80/20 principle, we help our clients know exactly who to target, how to reach them, and what to do next across direct mail, cold calling, SMS, and digital channels. We are a lean, remote-first team that works side by side with AI, with a world-class team at our core.

Our Core Values

• Find a Better Way: We dig until we understand the real problem, then improve or innovate to solve it. Focused on the 20% that drives the biggest result.

• Have Each Other's Back: We work as a team. We support, step in, and go the extra mile to create a great experience for each other and our clients.

• Honor Your Word: We honor our promises, hold ourselves accountable, and do the right thing even when nobody’s looking.

• Own Your Growth: We're obsessed with personal growth and take pride in the work we deliver. Intrinsically motivated, we hold ourselves to a high standard and never coast.

• Bring Your A-Game: We take care of our recovery, health, and family time, and that’s why we show up focused, energized, and ready to perform at our best.

🎯 Role Overview

As an Engineering Manager, you will own the whole platform behind our product, back end and front end: everything that takes the data our data team publishes and puts it in front of every client. You make it reliable, fast, secure and worth what it costs, and you make sure we see a failure before a client does.

You are a strategic architect and an independent thinker who leads people well. You shape what we build, not just how: you question every request against the client's real need, propose the simplest design and avoid complexity that turns into debt. You lead a small team that uses AI to do more with less: we would rather have two great engineers using AI than a bigger team.

At least half your time is hands-on: architecture, design, reviewing code (including AI-written code) and building with AI agents. The rest is leading the team.

💡 Key Responsibilities

• Own the platform end to end. Design and evolve the architecture of our whole platform, back end and front end, that takes the data our data team publishes and serves it to every client. Write down each major decision and why, and remove old shortcuts instead of rebuilding them.

• Catch failures before clients do. Set up the alerts, testing and monitoring that surface problems before a client notices. After a serious failure, run a no-blame review, find the root cause (a missing test, alert, skill or owner) and fix it so it never repeats.

• Keep critical services up, fast and current. Run our critical services to clear targets for uptime and response time, and make sure every client gets newly published data within a day.

• Protect client data. Give every login only the access it needs, keep each client’s data apart, close security findings on time, and work with security specialists where it counts.

• Own cloud cost. Keep the platform bill within budget and bring the cost per paid client down every quarter, without slowing anything down.

• Challenge every request. Partner with Product to test each request against the client’s real need and its running cost, propose the simplest design, and put numbers on the tradeoffs. If Product uses 50 columns, we don’t serve 500.

• Build hands-on with AI. Spend at least half your time on architecture, design and code review, including AI-written code. Design and supervise the AI-agent workflows that let a small team ship more, and track how often releases ship and break.

• Lead a small, strong team. Coach instead of fixing it yourself, talk about performance in every 1:1, give honest feedback and address performance issues directly. Build the smallest team that can deliver.

• Plan well and deliver on your commitments. Keep a clear roadmap of validated work so the team always knows what to build next. Estimate realistically and set dates you can stand behind. If a deadline is at risk, flag it early and come with a plan to get back on track.

What Success Looks Like

• Clients never find our failures first: we catch problems before they do, and none repeats.

• Critical services stay up, fast and current for every client.

• Infrastructure cost per paid client falls every quarter, within budget and without slowing anything down.

• Client data stays safe.

• The team always knows what to build next, and only builds work that has been validated.

• You plan well and keep your commitments. If a deadline is at risk, you flag it early and come with a plan.

✅ Qualifications

We look at what you have done, not your job title.

• You are an engineer: a degree in engineering or computer science (e.g. software, computer, or civil industrial engineering with IT). A master's degree is a plus.

• You have owned a system in production and run it: you have lived through failures, fixed them and stopped them from coming back.

• You build with AI coding agents today and review what they produce.

• You have led a team of at least two engineers for at least two years, as a manager or a tech lead, and given them honest, direct feedback.

• You are curious: you have become an expert in something on your own, because you wanted to, not because someone asked you to.

• You question how things are done, you spot risks before anyone asks, and you only call a problem solved once you have proved the fix works.

• You plan and estimate well, and you keep your commitments.

• Fluent English.

Nice to Have

Experience with a software product that serves many clients from one platform (B2B or B2C), working next to a data team, managing a cloud budget, working with security specialists, or real estate, proptech or fintech. Your technology stack does not matter.

Why Join Us?

At 8020REI, you’ll help shape how real estate investors and home services businesses find their next customers. You’ll own meaningful work, use the latest AI tools, and grow alongside a high-performing team that gives honest feedback and celebrates wins together.

📝 What We Offer

• Competitive Base Compensation

• Performance Bonus (Profit Share)

• Flexible Time Off (up to 26 days per year)

• Home Office Upgrade Bonus

• HMO Bonus

• Fully Remote Work

• Impact Moments: build homes for families in need, side by side with the team

• Opportunities to grow with the company

• Ongoing support and budget to develop new skills

Ready to help us build what’s next? Apply now. We’d love to hear from you.