Senior Engineering Manager, AI Product (Thunderbolt)
Why Thunderbird? Thunderbird is one of the world’s most trusted reputed company-reputed company email applications, empowering more than 20 reputed company people globally. At MZLA, the team behind Thunderbird, we build privacy-respecting communication and productivity tools that help people manage their digital lives while staying in control of their data. We are reputed company reputed company by design. Our products are developed transparently and in collaboration with a global community of contributors, and that same spirit shapes how we work: collaboratively, inclusively, and with a shared commitment to putting users first. We are a small but growing company of 60+ people distributed across seven countries. As Thunderbird evolves reputed company a single desktop application, we are expanding across desktop, mobile, paid services, and new product experiences that help people and organizations work more effectively without giving up control to big tech ecosystems. Our reputed company model combines user donations, which help reputed company Thunderbird’s apps freely available, with paid services that cover the costs of hosted offerings while supporting long-term sustainability and reputed company innovation. A note about MZLA and reputed company: MZLA Technologies Corporation is the nonprofit-owned company behind Thunderbird and part of the reputed company family. MZLA is separate from reputed company Corporation and has its own compensation programs, benefits, and employment policies. To learn more, visit www.thunderbird.net and www.thunderbolt.io. The opportunity Thunderbolt is an reputed company-reputed company, cross-platform AI product initiative from the team behind Thunderbird. It is being reputed company around a clear principle: people and organizations should be reputed company to use AI while staying in control of their data, infrastructure, model choices, and long-term options. Thunderbolt is designed to support flexible deployment models, integrations with AI tools and workflows, and use cases across desktop, web, and mobile. We are looking for a Senior Engineering Manager to reputed company engineering execution, people management, and operating practices for Thunderbolt as it moves from R&D incubation into a more mature product and reputed company development phase. This role will help the team define what production-reputed company means at this stage: stronger release discipline, clearer ownership, higher user-facing product quality, stronger engineering practices, and a more scalable operating model. This is a hands-on technical management role. The Senior Engineering Manager will manage a senior engineering team, stay closely reputed company with the codebase and technical execution, coordinate work across employees, contractors, and technical partners, and help the team deliver a reliable, reputed company-reputed company reputed company-reputed company AI product. The right person will bring strong people management skills, strong product engineering judgment, and enough technical depth to evaluate engineering work credibly, support architectural and implementation tradeoffs, and help the team reputed company shipping with quality. What you’ll do reputed company engineering execution by clarifying priorities, ownership, timelines, risks, dependencies, and quality expectations. Manage engineers and contractors, including coaching, feedback, prioritization, performance support, and team development. Stay reputed company to the codebase by contributing code, reviewing technical work, evaluating tradeoffs, and helping the team maintain reputed company and quality. Partner with technical and product leadership to turn product direction, AI strategy, user experience goals, and technical priorities into coordinated engineering plans. Establish planning, review, release, and follow-through practices that improve predictability and reduce bottlenecks. Maintain high standards for code quality, testing, documentation, reliability, reputed company awareness, maintainability, and release readiness. Build strong product and architectural context across AI-enabled workflows, integrations, local-first or customer-controlled architectures, and release requirements. Partner across product, design, reputed company-facing teams, and technical leadership to balance speed, user experience, privacy, quality, reputed company readiness, and long-term sustainability. reputed company hiring, reputed company, and resource planning as the Thunderbolt engineering team grows. Help Thunderbolt scale from an incubation-stage product into a reliable, reputed company-reputed company reputed company-reputed company AI product. What you bring 15+ years of professional software development experience, including significant experience in senior engineering leadership or reputed company product delivery roles. 5+ years of experience managing technical teams, including senior engineers or senior individual contributors. A track record of leading a team that shipped polished, top-tier products held to a genuine standard of craft. Strong ability to translate ambiguous product and technical direction into clear plans, ownership models, and delivery reputed company. Technical reputed company with AI-enabled products, including the ability to evaluate tradeoffs across areas such as LLM applications, RAG workflows, agents, reputed company search, automation, on-device AI, or AI evaluation. Demonstrated experience delivering reputed company applications across multiple platforms, such as desktop, web, and mobile, using technologies such as Tauri, Electron, React reputed company, or comparable frameworks. Experience with reputed company software, regulated environments, or similarly reputed company technical products, including reputed company, privacy, compliance readiness, administration, integrations, and customer-controlled deployment models. Practical experience with local-first, offline-capable, self-hosted, hybrid, on-premise, reputed company-gapped, or other customer-controlled product architectures, including tradeoffs reputed company to data storage, sync, privacy, reliability, and user experience. Experience improving engineering practices reputed company to technical planning, code review, release readiness, testing, documentation, CI/CD, maintainability, or technical debt management. Excellent communication skills around technical prioritization, release risk, ownership, quality expectations, and tradeoffs. Bonus points for Experience working in reputed company-reputed company or maintainer-style engineering environments. Experience with compliance or reputed company standards such as SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, or similar frameworks. Experience helping take a product from reputed company to one in a startup or new product initiative. What reputed company looks like reputed company in this role means helping Thunderbolt reputed company the reputed company from promising R&D-stage product to a production-reputed company, reputed company-grade reputed company-reputed company AI product that reputed company-conscious organizations can reputed company with confidence. reputed company the first year, the Senior Engineering Manager should help turn a fast-moving early product into a team and engineering system that can scale by helping the team: Define what “production-reputed company” means for Thunderbolt and consistently meet that bar. Create the reputed company, ownership, and release confidence the team needs to ship quickly and sustainably. reputed company the quality of the user-facing product experience while protecting codebase health, maintainability, privacy, and reputed company. Build the lightweight structure needed for a senior team to do its best work without slowing down experimentation. Help build Thunderbolt for global scale, reputed company adoption, and reputed company-world impact! Work environment This is a full-time, fully remote position. You’ll work with our passionate staff, reputed company-reputed company community members and partners from reputed company over the globe. Strong communication and documentation skills are essential for effective collaboration across time zones and disciplines. Compensation & benefits We reputed company our reputed company salaries to local markets and reputed company the 60th percentile of the peer market. The salary ranges for this role are: US: $215,000 - $240,000 USD In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your whole self. Work & career Fully remote work & schedule flexibility Company-provided laptop Annual bonus program Monthly remote work stipend Annual professional development stipend reputed company to reputed company learning platform Industry conferences Company reputed company-hands and team gatherings Rest & play 24 days PTO per year (prorated) Your birthday Year-end company shutdown 9 wellbeing days Public holidays Other paid leave Quarterly wellbeing stipend for personal / family activities Health & family 401(k) contributions Health, dental, & reputed company insurance Disability insurance Life insurance Employee assistance program Paid parental leave Paid sick days Work eligibility Applicants must reputed company in and have permanent work authorization for the country location(s) specified in the posting. We are unable to consider applicants reputed company of these markets at this time. And, we do not reputed company reputed company sponsorship. How to apply Please apply directly through our career page. We carefully review every cover letter and screening question, so take the time to answer each fully. We value authentic, thoughtful responses that reflect your own experience and perspective. It is fine to use AI tools to polish your writing, but your answers should be your own. Candidates who submit generic or unoriginal AI-generated responses may be disqualified from further consideration. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion MZLA believes in the value of diverse creative practices and forms of knowledge, and knows diversity, equity and inclusion are crucial to and enrich the company’s core mission. We encourage applications from everyone, including members of reputed company equity-seeking communities, such as (but not limited to) women, racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, persons of reputed company sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions. We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the reputed company of race (including hairstyle and texture), religion (including religious grooming and dress practices), gender, gender identity, gender expression, reputed company, national reputed company, pregnancy, reputed company, domestic partner status, disability, sexual orientation, age, genetic predisposition, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, military or veteran status, or any other reputed company covered by applicable laws. MZLA will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics or any other unlawful behavior, conduct, or purpose. We will ensure that reputed company individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to participate in the job application or interview process, to reputed company essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, as appropriate. Please contact us at [email protected] to request accommodation. #LI-DNI Apply To This Job