Manager, Software Engineering

POSITION TITLE: Manager, Software Engineering

POSITION LOCATION:  San Carlos, CA, Austin, TX, or Remote, USA

POSITION SUMMARY:

Natera is seeking a hands-on, self-motivated Engineering Manager to lead a global software development team in the women's health domain in a fast-growing biotech company.

In this pivotal role, you will be at the forefront of cutting-edge research in the field of non-invasive prenatal testing, overseeing a team dedicated to advancing our revolutionary initiatives. Your responsibilities will encompass not only the development and direction of a distributed engineering workforce but also the orchestration of project management activities and the facilitation of clear and effective communication across all levels.This is not a pure people-management role. You will spend some amount of your time hands-on: writing code, reviewing merge requests, and testing alongside your team.We are looking for someone who pairs strong technical judgment with real care for people, is energized by change, and wants to make a direct impact on tests that families rely on.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead
  • Provide technical leadership for a software development team, US-based and international, to deliver high-quality software on time and on budget
  • Lead technical design, architecture, and implementation strategy for the team's services and integrations
  • Establish and model engineering best practices, including how AI tools are used safely in a regulated environment
• Build
  • Write production code on the team's services, taking tickets yourself, especially on critical-path and cross-team work
  • Review merge requests every week. Hold a high bar for correctness, test coverage, and maintainability, whether the code was written by hand or with AI assistance
  • Contribute directly to testing: write and extend automated tests, verify changes before release, and help triage production issues
  • Stay close enough to the code to make sound technical calls and credible estimates
• Lead AI Transformation
  • Use AI coding assistants and agentic tools (for example Claude Code, GitHub, Cursor) in your own daily work, and coach your team to do the same
  • Redesign the team's workflow around AI:
    • AI-assisted ticket refinement and spec-driven development
    • AI-assisted code review
    • AI-generated tests
    • automation of repetitive work
  • Build a cross-functional team where developers and test engineers both build and verify, and no one verifies their own work
  • Measure AI's impact against the team's own baseline (cycle time, lead time, quality, time from grooming to ready) and share what works with other teams
  • Keep people accountable for AI-assisted work, so that it meets our review, traceability, validation, and compliance requirements

• Manage
  • Manage multiple concurrent projects spanning product launches, platform migrations, and production support
  • Identify project objectives, the scope of software deliverables, external dependencies, resources, risks, and a framework for the project activities
  • Facilitate collaboration and resolve issues, evaluate project performance, bring projects to delivery, and act on the lessons learned
  • Lead team meetings and Agile rituals such as stand-ups, retrospectives, planning sessions, and demos

• Nurture
  • Guide the career development of team members and grow their technical, interpersonal, and AI skills
  • Provide individual performance feedback focused on recognition of achievement and opportunities for growth
  • Conduct 1:1s, performance evaluations, and more
  • Recruit and hire strong, diverse talent
• Collaborate
  • Build and maintain ongoing strong working relationships with stakeholders, focus on building effective communication channels
  • Build and maintain strong working relationships with product management, laboratory operations, bioinformatics, clinical, and quality partners
• Effect change
  • Provide feedback to management and initiate change to optimize software development processes with focus on quality, innovation, and efficient product delivery

QUALIFICATIONS:

• BS or MS degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• 2+ years of proven track record of building and managing high performance engineering teams
• 5+ years of experience in software development using Java or similar languages
• Practical, daily experience with AI coding tools and agentic workflows, and experience helping a team adopt them
• Experience in and aptitude for leading remote teams
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Passion for people management and mentorship
• Experience in biotech, diagnostics, healthcare, or another regulated industry a strong plus

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Proven record of managing highly effective engineering teams
• Willingness and ability to manage global teams across multiple time zones
• Focus on recruiting strong and diverse talent
• Strong experience mentoring developers and test engineers, seeking out opportunities and giving guidance so engineers grow and excel
• Excellent project management skills in Agile environments
• Experience building enterprise back-end services using Java/Spring Boot or similar
• Experience with distributed and event-driven systems such as Kafka, workflow orchestration such as Temporal, relational databases, and AWS
• Hands-on coding, design, architecture, and code-review skills
• Test automation experience, and a habit of building quality in rather than inspecting it in
• A track record of using AI to measurably improve a team's delivery, backed by data rather than anecdotes
• Sound judgment about where AI helps and where it needs guardrails: verification, security, patient data privacy, and validation of regulated software
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally and communicate effectively with reports, peers, and stakeholders
• Initiative: a proactive approach to addressing issues and finding creative solutions
• A strong work ethic and the ability to work well under pressure and in stressful circumstances
• Experience with Next Generation Sequencing data, bioinformatics pipelines, or genomics workflow platforms is a plus
• Experience developing software in a regulated environment (e.g., CLIA/CAP, FDA design controls, 21 CFR Part 11) is a plus

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