Job description
Knak is a mission-driven company
Why? Because our time is limited, our competition is fierce, and our margin for error is small. For us to have the greatest impact on the world, we need to be laser focused on our core mission, which is…
Empowering people to be creative.
That’s why Knak exists.
We are a world-class enterprise email and landing page creation platform with a focus on making successful and happy customers by providing them with an incredibly powerful, yet easy to use creation platform.
Our industry leading SaaS solution is built by Marketers, for Marketers. We know that it’s the small things that make the biggest impact and that emails and landing pages are where the rubber hits the road when it comes to Marketing Automation. We change the way Marketers work by making them more efficient, while improving conversion rate of their campaigns and helping them stay on brand.
Oh, and we have a bit of fun while doing it, too!
Purpose of the Role
The Engineering Manager plays a critical role in leading multiple cross-functional product engineering teams. This role ensures the consistent delivery of scalable, high-quality software solutions aligned with product goals. The role will be focused on the broad area of Knak integrations and the Knak API to allow our customers and stakeholders to extend and enhance the usage of the platform. The role will support the triad leadership model (engineering lead, product manager, designer) to guide strategy, execution, and delivery across Knak’s product lines.
Key Responsibilities
WHAT: Lead and coach existing integration focused product engineering team and build out additional teams to support increasing scope of requirements in the integrations domain.
HOW: Mentor team leads on each team, provide performance feedback, and create growth opportunities. Facilitate regular team rituals, career development, and succession planning.
OUTCOME: High-performing teams that are resilient, aligned, and capable of delivering business-impacting outcomes.
WHAT: Drive the execution of product engineering roadmaps across teams.
HOW: Collaborate in triad with PMs and Designers to scope, prioritize, and plan work. Use agile frameworks and delivery tracking tools (i.e. shortcut).
OUTCOME: Projects shipped predictably, with quality, and aligned with product vision and timelines.
WHAT: Elevate engineering standards and delivery practices across teams.
HOW: Promote code quality, architecture reviews, test automation, observability and CI/CD improvements.
OUTCOME: Teams consistently ship robust, maintainable code with fewer regressions and higher reliability.
WHAT: Align engineering output with company goals and product priorities.
HOW: Actively participate in quarterly planning, OKR alignment, and roadmap reviews.
OUTCOME: Engineering efforts are tightly mapped to measurable business and customer impact.
WHAT: Build cross-functional alignment and stakeholder confidence.
HOW: Serve as a communication bridge between engineers, leadership, product, and support teams.
OUTCOME: Stakeholders are informed and confident in progress, timelines, and technical decisions.
Scope & Decision-Making
- Manages multiple teams (typically 2–4), each with a Team Lead.
- Operates with a high degree of autonomy; accountable for team outcomes and delivery health.
- Contributes to engineering hiring and team resourcing plans.
- No direct budget ownership but may influence tooling or vendor decisions.
- Expected to make decisions on team execution, architecture alignment, and team structure/escalation.
Required Skills & Experience
- 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with 2+ years in engineering leadership roles.
- Proven track record of leading high-performing product engineering teams in a SaaS or tech-forward environment.
- Experience working in an agile delivery environment with modern frameworks and toolchains.
- Strong mentorship, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Familiar with CI/CD, testing strategies, and scalable architecture patterns.
- Proven experience owning in-house APIs and delivering projects that integrate with diverse external APIs to drive product capabilities.
- Empathy-driven leadership style with a commitment to coaching, feedback, and development.
Success Metrics
- Teams consistently meet roadmap delivery timelines with high quality.
- Improved engagement scores and retention across engineering reports.
- Reduced cycle times and increased velocity across managed teams.
- Reduced support bugs raised within the team’s domain area.
- Effective coordination across triads and stakeholder satisfaction with delivery outcomes.
- Increased technical capability and career progression among reports.
What We Offer
At Knak we have four foundational pillars. Culture, customers, product and growth. Culture is our number one pillar because we know that is at the core of building a strong company that can build amazing products and delight our customers. We do this with a laser focus on hiring the right people who are smart, positive and who want more than the typical nine-to-five offers.
We offer an extremely rewarding, second to none work environment as acknowledged by Ottawa’s Best Places to Work 2024! We show our investment in our people through our competitive salaries, equity in the company, great benefits, paid vacation, Life leave days (because life happens), team lunches and off-sites, and most importantly our commitment to YOUR career growth.
If this sounds like something you’re looking for, then we’d love to hear from you!
If you don’t see yourself fully reflected in every job requirement listed on the posting above, we still encourage you to reach out and apply. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups often only apply when they feel 100% qualified. We strongly encourage applicants of all genders, ages, ethnicities, cultures, abilities, sexual orientations, and life experiences to apply. Knak believes in creating an inclusive, barrier-free working environment. If you require ANY accommodation to the interview process please contact [email protected].
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