Senior Manager Engineering
About the Company
At Twenty, we're taking on one of the most critical challenges of our time: defending democracies in the digital age. We develop revolutionary technologies that operate at the intersection of the cyber and electromagnetic domains, where the speed of operations exceeds human sensing and complexity transcends conventional boundaries. Our team doesn't just solve problems – we deliver game-changing outcomes that directly impact national security. We're pragmatic optimists who understand that while our mission of protecting America and its allies is challenging, success is possible.
Role Summary
You will lead core engineering teams building graph-powered cyber operations platforms that support real-world U.S. national security missions. You’ll own team performance, delivery, and engineering excellence across a multi-disciplinary org spanning frontend, backend, full-stack, AI/ML, and data engineering. You’ll partner with product, cyber operations experts, and senior leadership to translate operational needs into a focused roadmap—and ship reliable capabilities on tight timelines. A core part of this role is building the talent engine: hiring, onboarding, mentorship, and career development systems that consistently elevate ICs and grow new technical leaders.
Who You Are
You lead with high standards and high support—direct feedback, clear expectations, and real investment in growth.
You’re energized by mission-critical work where reliability, security, and speed all matter.
You bring calm, structured decision-making to ambiguous, fast-moving problem spaces.
You think in systems: architecture, teams, process, and outcomes—not just tickets.
You’re a coach: you give specific feedback, create stretch opportunities, and help ICs expand scope sustainably.
You build talent systems that scale: structured hiring, clear leveling, regular calibration, and transparent promotions.
You develop technical leaders by distributing ownership—design reviews, RFCs, incident leadership, and roadmap responsibility.
You communicate crisply with engineers, operators, and executives—without losing technical truth.
What You’ll Do
Lead and develop a team of 10–15 engineers across frontend, backend, full-stack, AI/ML, and data.
Build and run the mechanisms that grow ICs: leveling expectations, growth plans, mentorship, and calibration.
Create clear technical leadership paths (senior → staff impact) through ownership of systems, reviews, and execution.
Drive execution across multiple workstreams, aligning plans, dependencies, and timelines to ship on time.
Guide architecture and technical decisions across the stack to keep the platform coherent and scalable.
Raise the bar on engineering quality through strong reviews, testing discipline, documentation, and security standards.
Partner with product managers to translate operational requirements into technical roadmaps and delivery plans.
Work closely with cyber operations experts and field teams to validate solutions in real operational contexts.
Coordinate cross-team initiatives (platform, data pipelines, model integration, and customer-facing workflows).
Establish a structured hiring process that identifies high-signal candidates and closes them effectively.
Must Have
You have 8–10 years of professional software engineering experience.
You have 4+ years of engineering management experience leading teams of 5+ engineers.
You have managed, coached, and performance-managed engineers across multiple seniority levels.
You have owned hiring end-to-end: structured interviews, strong debriefs, and consistently high hiring bar.
You have a track record of developing ICs into expanded scope (tech lead/staff-level ownership) through coaching and opportunity design.
You have delivered complex, multi-team systems on time with high quality and clear accountability.
You have strong technical judgment across modern web platforms and backend services, and can lead architecture/design reviews.
You must be eligible to obtain a U.S. Government security clearance.
Nice To Have
You have experience in defense, intelligence, or national security technology environments.
You’ve built or scaled real-time or mission-critical operational platforms.
You’ve worked with graph databases and graph-based modeling for complex analytical problems.
You’ve led teams shipping production AI/ML capabilities (deployment, monitoring, iteration loops).
You have experience with secure development practices for government or controlled environments.
You’ve helped scale an engineering organization through a growth phase.
Tech Environment (You Might Work With)
React + TypeScript for user-facing applications
Go (and sometimes Python) for backend services and integrations
Neo4j (and graph-based data modeling) for core platform capabilities
Real-time data pipelines, event-driven systems, and APIs (REST/GraphQL)
AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and observability tooling
Security / Work Environment
Some positions may require eligibility to obtain a U.S. Government security clearance. This role is in-office and may involve work in a controlled environment.
If this role sounds like you, apply and share with us your interest.
Some positions may require eligibility to obtain a U.S. Government security clearance. Any clearance requirement will be listed in the role description.
Twenty is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected status.
If you need a reasonable accommodation during the hiring process, let us know and we will work with you.