About Effortless Admin
Effortless Admin is a fully web-based, multi-carrier, software solution that provides employers an effortless way of managing employee benefits. Our goal is to provide the best benefits administration experience to employers and their employees, empower advisors, and ultimately bring everyone together to work as effectively as possible. As an expanding organization, we're seeking motivated leaders who want to join us on our growth trajectory.
Position Overview
Reports to: Chief Technology Officer
Manages: 4 engineering team leads (~14 engineers total)
This is a full-time permanent position with a competitive compensation and benefits package. This position is in-person, on-site in Edmonton, AB.
The role
We're hiring an Engineering Manager to lead the day-to-day of our engineering organization so that our four teams ship the right things, on time, without burning out or losing focus. This is a people-and-delivery leadership role, not a technical-authority role. You own how and when the work gets done and who does it well. Technical direction, what we build and the architecture behind it, stays with the CTO and our technical leads. If that division of labour sounds like a relief rather than a constraint, you're the kind of leader we're looking for.
We're a benefits-administration company, but don't let that fool you: we treat software as a craft, not a cost centre. Most shops in our industry are bad at building software. We're not, and we intend to stay that way… which is exactly why this seat matters.
Who you'll lead
You'll manage four engineering team leads who, between them, run roughly fourteen engineers across our product, platform, and security/operations surface. Each lead owns the one-on-ones and day-to-day coaching of their own team. Your job is to lead the leads, to make four good team leads into four great ones, and to make the whole engineering org operate as one coordinated unit rather than four silos.
What you'll own
- Cross-team delivery. Our teams depend on each other constantly. The single most important part of your job is making workflow between teams, so nothing stalls. When delivery is on track, it's largely because you made the handoffs work.
- Developing the four leads. Your team gets better at leading because of you. You coach, hold accountable, and grow the people who grow everyone else.
- Delivery commitments. The executive team sets the goals and the ambitions. You and the CTO negotiate what's realistic against actual capacity, land on a shared commitment. From that point, hitting it is yours. You're the person the business can trust when they ask, "When will this be live?"
- Process and predictability. You run the engineering team's own weekly Level 10 meeting, separate from the executive L10, focused on engineering's leading indicators and issues. You build the cadence that keeps the team focused and stops people from flipping between things half-finished.
- Hiring and retention. You own the bar, the pipeline, and most importantly, keeping the good people we already have. Talent walking out the door is a failure you're accountable for preventing.
- Protecting focus. When someone wants to squeeze in a small feature or fix, that's your call. Small things can flex in, but the commitments still land. You're the one who gets to say no to protect the team's focus, and the business knows that no is a real answer.
What you won't own (and why that's good)
- Technical direction and architecture. The CTO owns what we build and why; our technical leads own how it's built. You're not expected to be the smartest engineer in the room, and you won't be asked to make architecture calls. You are expected to be technical enough to follow the work, challenge an estimate, and tell when a "blocker" is real.
- Security risk and incident decisions. One of your teams covers platform and office security (SOC 2, network security). You'll manage that lead's delivery cadence and growth like any other. However, live security incidents and security-risk calls escalate directly to the CTO.
How we'll measure success
You'll be held to a focused scorecard:
- Commitment reliability. The percentage of work delivered on the date we committed to. This is the number that matters most.
- Interruption minimization. The team stays on task and isn't derailed by work outside its commitments. You're the guard dog on the team's time, shielding developers from demands outside the department and from each other, and you're empowered to say no on their behalf.
- Team health. A regular pulse on how the engineering teams are doing. The early-warning system for everything else.
- Regrettable attrition. Are we keeping the people we want to keep.
- Cross-team blocked time. How long work sits stalled waiting on another team. The truest measure of whether you're doing the hardest part of the job well.
Who you are
- A builder at heart. You came up through engineering, you can read a pull request and follow an architecture conversation, and you can smell a padded estimate from across the room. You might still love writing code, but these days your satisfaction comes from the team shipping, not from your own commits.
- A manager of managers. You've led leads, not just engineers, and you know the difference, but you also understand how an engineer thinks and what makes them tick.
- A You get a group of highly intelligent experts pulling in the same direction and keep them there.
- A straight negotiator. You can hold a firm, honest line with the business on what's achievable… and back it with reality, not excuses. You can say no to people higher on the org chart.
- Calm under competing priorities and allergic to letting work drift unfinished.
What we're not looking for
- Someone who wants to be the technical authority, reclaim the keyboard, or win the architecture debate. That's not this seat, and it'll create friction with leads who own those calls.
- Someone who needs to be the smartest technical person in the room to feel valuable.
- Industry experience. You do not need any background in group benefits, insurance, or our industry. Frankly, we'd rather you didn't bring its software habits with you. We'll teach you the domain. You bring the leadership.
If this sounds like you, submit your resume and cover letter. Effortless Admin is committed to building diverse teams and an inclusive workplace. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates.
