Software Engineering Manager

Job description

Who we are: Founded in 2001, Vivid Seats (NASDAQ: SEAT) is a leading online ticket marketplace committed to becoming the ultimate partner for connecting fans to the live events, artists, and teams they love. We believe in the power of experiences and are fiercely dedicated to building products that inspire human connections. Named as one of BuiltIn’stop places to work in 2025, we believe that our People are our greatest competitive advantage. To support our People, we have built a company culture that empowers our employees to embrace challenges, encourages unity through collaboration, and seeks to constantly evolve by leveraging data and inspiring innovation.

We believe in harnessing emerging technology to power performance and unlock creativity. As part of our culture of innovation, we actively embrace the use of AI tools to enhance decision-making, improve workflows, and producebetter outcomes for our customers.

The Opportunity:

We are looking for an experienced and innovative Software Engineering Manager for our B2C Engineering team who is passionate about building web applications and services. You will manage a full-stack team comprising of software and quality engineers, that has ownership of our customer-facing website and supporting backend services. At Vivid Seats, you will have the opportunity to rapidly change the face of the ticket marketplace industry. You will be building out solutions that enable a world class user experience across the Vivid Seats platform.

In addition to bringing Engineering best practices, you will develop a collaborative, cross-disciplinary and high-performing team while overseeing and improving organizational design, structure, priorities, management processes and reporting information systems. You will be responsible for hiring and promoting talent, while building productive, value-added partnerships with stakeholders. You will also be integral in building an engaged Vivid Seats corporate culture. “How” results are achieved will be as important as “what” is achieved.

How your role contributes to the success of Vivid Seats:

• Proactively understand business goals & proposed product milestones. And apply a curious & critical lens to uncovering technical risks & opportunities.
• Partnering with business stakeholders, product owners, design and data teams in a high velocity software engineering environment to define and bring new capabilities to market.
• Identify and deliver upon opportunities to evolve, scale, and optimize our Web Development Strategy.
• Lead complex initiatives and act as the technical subject matter expert in software design, architecture, implementation, deployment, and support for all software development in a fast-paced Agile environment.
• Provide meaningful input into design and architecture decisions that drive technical innovations.
• Hire, develop, and retain a team of high performing engineers while participating in broader technology and product talent initiatives.
• Lead a team to excellence in execution to deliver quality projects on-time.
• Create alignment among teams and stakeholders while inspiring employees to achieve their best through effective leadership and communication practices.

How your role expectations will progress as a Senior Engineering Manager in the first 30, 90, and 180 days:

30 days in

• Acclimate to Vivid Seats’ values and organizational goals to understand how your department drives initiatives forward.
• Understand your teams’ contributions and the needs of stakeholders that rely on your deliverables to bring business objectives to life.
• Set weekly touch points with direct reports to understand their role, motivations, and needs, building trust and leading with empathy.
• Develop basic understanding of applications, tech stack, and development process.

90 days in

• Empower and coach team members to achieve personal and functional goals that correlate to department objectives.
• Develop and lead initiatives for your team that enhance process, drive innovation, and build on Vivid Seats values.
• Delivery of stable and scalable front-end code for our B2C application suite.
• Contribute to our approaches, methods, or technologies to support overall business goals and drive team efficiency.
• Meaningfully contribute to department roadmap exercises that balance current needs with future strategic initiatives.
• Site monitoring using APM tools to ensure operational effectiveness.

180 days in

• Monitor and evolve team deliverables, individual goals, and overall performance to ensure alignment with broader initiatives of your department and the organization while coaching your team to grow skill sets.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to confirm accurate prioritization and refine processes for collaboration and best practices.
• Demonstrate fluency of web B2C applications/services and the business context the drives the work managed by the Web team.

What You’ll Bring:

• A customer first attitude with proven technical experience working in software engineering, preferably with modern languages (like TypeScript and Java) and frameworks such as React, NextJS and Spring Boot.
• Demonstrated technical leadership in a fast-paced Agile environment where you have led high performing teams, proposed designs, and collaboratively solved architectural challenges related to the growth and development of products.
• Ability to diagnose technology related escalations from production systems and ensure timely deliveries.
• A love of technology, passion for programming, and a strong curiosity to solve real problems with code at scale.
• Experience setting clear performance and business outcome expectations with a team of direct reports.
• Ability to drive work efforts and impact through the team; establishing and maintaining role, ownership and accountability definitions between direct reports and their counterparts.
• Effective planning and collaboration skills to partner with Product Management and stakeholders on the Product and technology roadmaps.
• A proven track record of delivering solutions to market.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills while demonstrating a sense of urgency & accountability.
• Self-Starter with strong work ethic, growth mindset, and superior attention to detail.

Vivid Seats Pay Transparency Disclaimer: Full time offers from Vivid Seats include annual bonus incentives and equity for all employees; FLEX PTO; mental health days; medical, dental, and vision insurance; 401K matching; monthly credits and discounts for attending live events; and a variety of additional workplace perks. The typical starting salary within the full salary range for this position can range. Factors which may affect starting salary include geographic market, relevant skills/experience, education, and other qualifications.

Full Salary Range: $160,000 – $195,000 USD

https://corporate.vividseats.com/careers/

Location: Chicago, IL

We believe in a hybrid 3 days/week in-office working model, which provides employees the flexibility to take advantage of in-person and remote collaboration. Check out our brand new HQ office, bursting with the energy of live events fandom and the vibrancy of Chicago’s rising tech scene.

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Our Commitment: We are an equal opportunity employer that values the critical importance of a diverse workforce and sense of belonging. Many of our roles have flexible requirements and we encourage you to apply regardless of whether you meet every qualification.