Protobuf is the best technology for schema driven development and Buf is invested in making Protobuf easy to use and adopt for everyone. Founded in 2020, we have raised money from leading investors, including Lightspeed, Tiger, and Addition. Our software is deployed everywhere from small startups to the world’s largest enterprises, and we’re thoughtfully hiring to continue to build out our vision and meet customer demand.

About the role

The Toolchain team at Buf is responsible for the core investments in Protobuf that unlock our ability to deliver commercial value to our customers. Here are some examples of the work this team does:

• We wrote the spec for Protobuf — literally.
• We wrote our own Protobuf compiler in Go that the Buf CLI uses.
• We created Connect RPC as a more ergonomic and lightweight alternative to gRPC that actually works in web browsers.
• We created Protovalidate to be the gold standard for semantic validation of Protobuf data that works consistently across languages.

About you

We’re looking to hire an engineering manager who is energized to work on Protobuf problems with us.

• You have a background in software engineering combined with experience managing engineering teams and hands on experience with Protobuf.
• You prioritize management responsibilities first, but are capable and comfortable directly making code and documentation contributions in a polyglot environment when time and space allow.
• You build strong, trusting, and transparent relationships with teammates and stakeholders to ensure that you always have an accurate pulse on everything that is happening in the orbit of your team.
• You work to understand the product, tools, and technologies your team is building and using so you can make informed and credible assessments about the priorities and quality of the team’s work.
• You’re eager to keep things moving forward, and proactively identify and resolve ambiguity and roadblocks that are slowing down the team.
• You drive alignment between your team’s work and what is right for the business and customers.
• You foster a great team environment where engineers are happy, motivated, and doing their best work on a consistent basis, whether they are fresh out of college or industry veterans.
• You exemplify and uphold a high quality bar for everything that you and your team produce (e.g. specs, plans, docs, demos, communications, code).
• You identify, attract, and hire excellent engineers that add unique value to the team.
• You don’t hesitate to have difficult conversations when necessary (e.g. delivering constructive feedback, expressing disagreement, communicating bad news), and you approach these situations with kindness and candor.
• You’re a strong communicator and wrangle the details to ensure plans and progress updates are captured clearly and concisely in writing.