Senior Engineering Manager - SaaS Applications (Berlin, DE)

We are looking for a highly technical Senior Engineering Manager to lead our team of software developers and QA testers and deliver high-quality releases of our cloud-based SaaS and mobile applications. This is a hands-on technical leadership role, not a traditional project management position.

The ideal candidate began as a software engineer and progressed into hands-on engineering leadership. You must have direct people-management responsibility - including hiring, performance management, and making staffing decisions. You will work closely with our Senior Product Manager, who defines what should be built and why; you will own how it is built, tested, and delivered. We do not have a separate project manager, so you will also run sprints, scrum boards, and the release cycle yourself.

Working Hours Fully remote, work-from-home contract position. Our engineering teams are distributed across North America, Europe, and Asia. Working hours are flexible, with a few core overlap hours for collaboration. Responsibilities

• Directly manage software developers (C# .NET, MAUI, MS SQL Server, Azure) and QA testers, including hiring, performance management, coaching, and staffing decisions
• Build and lead distributed engineering teams across multiple countries, ensuring effective collaboration and accountability
• Work with the Senior Product Manager to turn product priorities and requirements into technical designs, estimates, and development plans
• Plan and run sprints, including sprint planning, stand-ups, reviews, and retrospectives

• Configure and manage Jira workflows, scrum boards, projects, dashboards, and reporting directly

• Own the release cycle end to end - scheduling, code freeze, QA sign-off, deployment, and post-release follow-up
• Ensure releases are delivered on time and at high quality
• Define and improve testing practices, test coverage, and QA processes in partnership with the QA team
• Understand software architecture, APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure, and development workflows
• Personally investigate, reproduce, and test product issues when necessary; do not rely solely on QA reports
• Identify technical, resource, and delivery risks and drive them to resolution
• Work directly with DevOps and support teams on deployments, production issues, and escalations
• Improve engineering processes, code quality, development practices, and team productivity

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a closely related technical field
• Must have started career as a software engineer/developer
• 10+ years of software industry experience, including 3+ years directly managing developers and/or QA engineers
• Proven record of excellent software development and technical problem-solving
• Strong understanding of modern software architecture, development, testing, and deployment
• Hands-on experience running Agile/Scrum teams and managing release cycles without a dedicated project manager
• Able to personally test, troubleshoot, reproduce, and validate software-not simply rely on QA
• Able to configure and manage Jira independently without relying on IT or other administrators
• Proven ability to lead, organize, and develop software engineering and QA teams
• Excellent communication and execution skills in a distributed, international environment
• Solid hands-on experience with C# .NET, MAUI, MS SQL Server, and Azure is strongly preferred

€96,000 - €132,000 per year (approx. €8,000 - €11,000 per month as a self-employed independent contractor (freelancer) invoicing directly; commensurate with experience)

Jolly is a Silicon Valley-based software company with more than 40,000 customers and millions of users, including many Fortune 500 companies and world-renowned organizations.