API Platform Manager

We are seeking a growth-minded Manager, API Platform to lead our API engineering team in building and operating a mission-critical platform that powers millions of transactions every day. The right candidate has operated under pressure in high-stakes environments where platform reliability and throughput are directly tied to company revenue. You will set the technical direction, grow your team, and be personally accountable for the health and evolution of our API stack., * Own the API platform roadmap - partner with product, architecture, and business stakeholders to translate company objectives into a scalable, high-throughput technical strategy

• Ensure platform reliability and performance at scale - oversee an API stack operating at scale, where downtime or degradation has direct bottom-line impact.
• Drive technical excellence in architecture, design, and delivery - guide decisions on microservices, API design, cloud-native patterns, and data strategies that support mission-critical throughput on AWS
• Champion a high-pressure, high-ownership engineering culture - establish SLOs/SLAs, observability practices, and incident response standards that reflect the criticality of the platform
• Grow and develop your team - invest in people through coaching, clear expectations, stretch assignments, and a feedback culture that rewards growth and continuous improvement
• Stay close to the technology - remain hands-on enough to assess technical risk, evaluate architectural tradeoffs, and earn credibility with your engineers through genuine technical depth
• Lead with humility and curiosity - actively solicit ideas from your team, challenge assumptions (including your own), and foster a culture where innovation is everyone’s responsibility
• Collaborate with offshore teams - partner effectively with distributed engineering teams across time zones, ensuring alignment on priorities, clear communication of technical standards, and seamless integration of offshore contributions into the platform roadmap

The above statements are intended only to describe the general nature of the job and should not be construed as an all-inclusive list of position responsibilities.

Do you have experience in Tooling?, * 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in an engineering leadership role

• Demonstrated experience owning a high-volume, business-critical API platform - ideally one processing large volume of transactions per day where availability directly impacts revenue
• Deep working knowledge of Java and Spring Boot; ability to guide architectural decisions and review code credibly
• Familiarity with generative AI and LLM integration and a forward-looking instinct for where AI fits in an API platform
• RESTful API design, microservices architecture, and API lifecycle governance at scale
• Proficiency with API design patterns - GraphQL, gRPC, and/or OpenAPI/Swagger - with strong opinions on when to use each
• AWS cloud-native development - hands-on with ECS Fargate, API Gateway, Lambda, SQS, S3, and related services
• Relational and NoSQL databases
• Distributed systems fundamentals - resilience patterns, fault tolerance, eventual consistency, and performance tuning under high-concurrency load
• Track record of performance optimization and scalability work - load testing, capacity planning, and incident response in production environments
• Exceptional communication skills - able to translate complex technical concepts for executives, business partners, and engineers alike, and to listen as well as they speak
• Proven record of building and developing engineering teams - hiring well, retaining top talent, and creating a psychologically safe environment that encourages bold ideas
• Experience leading teams in Agile/Scrum environments with a bias toward delivery, learning, and continuous iteration
• Experience managing through a high-severity platform incident (outage, degradation, or security event) at scale
• Background in fintech, payments, e-commerce, or any domain where API uptime is tied directly to transaction revenue
• Event-driven architecture experience (Kafka, SNS/SQS, EventBridge) in a high-throughput production context
• Hands-on experience with observability tooling (Datadog, Splunk, or similar) and a philosophy of building platforms that are easy to monitor and debug

Pulled from the full job description

• Referral program
• Tuition reimbursement
• Health insurance
• 401(k) matching
• Vision insurance
• Health savings account
• Dental insurance, Company Benefits:
• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Health Savings Account
• 401(k) Plan with Company Match
• Company-paid Short-Term and Long-Term Disability
• Company-paid Life Insurance
• Paid Holidays and Vacation
• Employee Referral Program
• Employee Assistance Program
• Wellness Programs
• Paid Community Service Opportunities
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Ongoing Training & Personal Development
• And More!

About Safe-Guard Products International

Safe-Guard serves Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), top retailers, and independent agents in the automotive finance and insurance industry with the leading Protection Products Platform. Our platform delivers innovative protection products and solutions that protect consumers from the perils of ownership, while providing Finance &Insurance professionals the tools to ignite scalable and sustainable business growth. Safe-Guard’s success is driven by over 850 employees, who serve more than 12,000 dealers and support contract holders across the U.S. and Canada.

For 30 years and counting, our team continues to transform the motor vehicle space, earning a stellar reputation from our partners and peers by providing: 1) the highest quality protection products in the industry, 2) a broad platform of branded product, technology, marketing, and training solutions, and 3) an unwavering commitment to uncomplicated care and customer service.

Safe-Guard Products International is an equal opportunity employer and gives consideration for employment to qualified applicants without regard to age, race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, marital status, disability or protected veteran status, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.