Software Engineering Manager

CleanCounts is seeking a Software Engineering Manager to lead and grow our technology team. This role is primarily people-focused, so you'll spend most of your time coaching engineers, removing blockers, shaping team culture, and driving execution across initiatives. You'll also carry a strong, informed voice in architecture decisions, release process strategy, and how we adopt LLM and agentic coding tools as the landscape evolves. If leading a mission-driven team building software that supports decarbonization excites you, we'd love to meet you.

Why This Role Matters

Our engineering team builds and maintains the platform that utilities, corporate buyers, and regulators rely on every day, working across a Ruby on Rails API, a React front end, PostgreSQL, and AWS infrastructure. This role exists to own the people and delivery side of that work so the Head of Technology can focus on strategy, roadmap, and external matters. The day-to-day is a mix of coaching, unblocking, sharpening our delivery process, and helping the team make good calls about where AI-assisted development actually helps.

About CleanCounts

CleanCounts is a 501(c)(4) non-profit that owns and manages an energy attribute certificate and thermal energy certificate tracking system. Our platform is used by Fortune 25 companies, utilities, and regulators, and we support our mission through software that promotes environmental markets and energy sector decarbonization. You will work on projects that matter and help infuse the market with enhanced data and information.

Workplace

Our teams are a mix of local and remote team members from mostly North and South America. You would work closely with developers, product and policy experts, as well as data analysts and customer support people across the company.

We have our own office space in Minneapolis and offer flexible working hours. Most engineers choose where they work best. Team members come together in person when it makes sense for collaboration, but we trust people to manage their own schedules with their teams and manager. We're deeply committed to our clean energy mission, but we're also collaborative, a little nerdy, and genuinely easy to work with., People Management and Team Leadership

• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of software engineers and analysts across a range of experience levels
• Conduct regular 1:1s, provide continuous feedback, and lead career development conversations
• Influence hiring decisions by defining role requirements, participating in interviews, and advising on candidate fit
• Foster a psychologically safe, high-trust team culture where people do their best work
• Handle performance management including goal-setting, reviews, and corrective action when needed
• Champion team health: monitor workload balance, prevent burnout, and advocate for sustainable pace
• Provide day-to-day direction to vendor engineers embedded on your team; the Head of Technology owns the vendor relationship and contract

Technical Strategy and Architecture

• Provide a weighted, informed opinion on architecture decisions across our Ruby on Rails API, React SPA, PostgreSQL databases, and supporting AWS infrastructure; final architectural authority for cross-cutting and long-horizon decisions rests with the Head of Technology
• Guide the team on how to evaluate, adopt, and integrate LLM-based tools, agentic coding workflows, and AI-assisted development practices as the landscape evolves
• Advise on how various AWS services (ECS, Lambda, RDS, S3, CloudWatch, etc.) can be leveraged to improve team workflows, observability, and platform reliability
• Ensure the team maintains high standards for code quality, test coverage (RSpec, Cypress), and operational reliability
• Partner with the Head of Technology on long-term technical roadmap and platform modernization (e.g., Rails upgrades, background job architecture, multi-database strategy)

Execution, Delivery, and Release Process

• Drive execution on cross-team initiatives and projects, own delivery timelines, surface risks early, and coordinate dependencies
• Advise on process changes and sprint tactics, adjusting cadences, refining estimation practices, tightening feedback loops in order to move the team toward a more predictable and sustainable delivery posture
• Help streamline and continuously improve our release process, reducing friction from code merge through production deployment
• Partner with the product team to lead and refine Agile processes (sprint planning, retrospectives, standups) to maximize team effectiveness without sacrificing quality
• Parse, plan around, and act on engineering metrics including team velocity, code review turnaround, release cycle time, and deployment frequency, to drive measurable improvements
• Manage the balance between feature delivery, technical debt reduction, and infrastructure investment

Collaboration and Organizational Leadership

• Serve as the engineering voice to the rest of the organization on execution and team health, partnering closely with the Head of Technology who represents engineering on strategy, roadmap, and external matters
• Translate complex technical concepts and trade-offs into clear language for non-technical stakeholders
• Partner with the product team to ensure alignment between business goals and technical execution
• Drive within-team and intra-team workflow improvements, automation, and developer experience initiatives
• Promote a culture of AI-augmented development, helping the team navigate the rapidly evolving LLM and agentic tooling landscape with pragmatism and purpose
• All other duties as assigned

Do you have experience in Technology management?, * 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with meaningful time spent in Ruby on Rails, Python, or comparable backend frameworks

• 2+ years of direct people management experience, managing engineers, not just tech-leading
• Strong understanding of relational databases, API design, and cloud infrastructure concepts (AWS preferred)
• Demonstrated ability to make sound architectural decisions and articulate technical trade-offs to both engineers and non-engineers
• Proven track record of building, growing, and retaining high-performing engineering teams
• Experience analyzing delivery metrics (velocity, cycle time, code review throughput) and using data to drive process improvements
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and interpersonal skills
• Experience working with product teams to run Agile/Scrum processes and continuously improving delivery practices
• Comfortable operating in a small, fast-paced, highly collaborative environment where you wear multiple hats
• Strong documentation instincts for decisions, processes, and standards
• Support of and interest in CleanCounts mission

Bonus Traits

• Experience managing teams that span backend (Rails), frontend (React), and infrastructure (AWS and Terraform)
• Familiarity with our stack: PostgreSQL, GoodJob, JSON:API, AWS, GitHub Actions, Docker
• Hands-on experience with or strong opinions on LLM-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, and others) and how to adopt them at a team level
• Background leading DevOps or platform engineering initiatives (CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, observability)
• Experience improving release processes and reducing time-to-production
• Background in energy, environmental, or sustainability industries
• Experience scaling engineering teams and processes as an organization grows

Pulled from the full job description

• 401(k)
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Life insurance
• Disability insurance
• Paid holidays
• Career development plan, * 401(k) with employer contribution (7% company contribution, no employee match required)
• Paid Time Off starting at 20 days per year
• Paid holidays
• Health stipend
• Communications stipend
• Parking/Transportation reimbursement
• Professional development budget
• Family and medical leave
• Life insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability coverage

Pay: $144,000.00 - $206,000.00 per year