Senior Engineering manager

Akeneo is the product experience (PX) company and global leader in Product Information Management (PIM); creating a world where every product interaction is an experience that guides consumers and professionals to the best purchase, anytime, anywhere. Akeneo empowers business leaders with software, education, and an engaged community all focused on the practice of product experience management.

At Akeneo, our teammates are the driving force behind who we are and where we want to go as a company. We work every day to shape a first-class work environment and culture, which is rooted in our core values of Humble Hunger, Diligent Benevolence, Responsible Pioneers and Inclusive Community! Our Purple Fire isn’t just a set of values; it’s our unique way of igniting passion and driving excellence. Bold and fun, with a hint of the unexpected - it is the essence of who we are. We want our people to help us grow and to grow with us, and that’s why we do whatever it takes to equip our employees with everything they may need to make a tangible impact on themselves, the business and the company. Let our intrepid three-headed mascot #ZiggyTheHydra welcome you into her world and join us at Akeneo! Learn more about who we are as an employer and about our Culture and Values via our Career page.

As a Senior Engineering Manager at Akeneo, you will drive impactful outcomes by combining strong technical leadership with effective people management within our dynamic ecosystem. You will focus on delivering scalable technical solutions that prioritise customer value, ensuring robust integrations, APIs, and data management. Join us to innovate, support company goals, and make a significant difference for our customers through seamless and efficient technological advancements.

At Akeneo, we expect Engineering Managers to not only be technical leaders but also business leaders, playing a critical role in aligning technical solutions with business strategies to deliver maximum impact. You will communicate with users, other technical teams, and senior leadership to gather requirements, describe software product features, articulate technical designs, and contribute to overall product strategy.

You will report to a Single Thread Owner, responsible for driving a product line strategy.

Responsibilities:

1. Customer Value Focus: You prioritise customer value and outcomes over rigid process adherence.
2. Autonomous Decision-Making: You independently make rapid and courageous decisions to drive impact. You use data, examples, and use case validations to justify team expansions, topic prioritisation, and roadmap changes.
3. Proactive Change Management: You embrace and advocate for change, prioritising company goals while supporting team and individual growth.
4. Communication & Alignment: You increase transparency and alignment by effectively communicating information between teams, championing the team's achievements, and addressing concerns with leadership.
5. Build a High-Performing Team: Motivate engineers through a culture of learning and development, implementing effective performance reviews and career development plans.
6. Challenging Technical Decisions: You encourage and challenge technical decisions, architecture, and standards, engaging with team members at all levels and seeking expertise when needed. You ensure that the products developed are scalable and have low maintenance requirements.
7. Business-Focused Leadership: Collaborate closely with product and business leaders to align technical solutions with business needs, ensuring the engineering team’s efforts directly contribute to the broader product strategy and customer satisfaction.

1. Proven Experience: You have significant experience in engineering management with a strong track record in both technical and people leadership roles.
2. Technical Proficiency: You have hands-on experience in software development and a solid understanding of modern technologies and best practices.
3. Autonomous Leadership: You demonstrated the ability to make timely, high-quality decisions independently.
4. Data-Driven Mindset: You have strong analytical skills to justify decisions with concrete data and examples.
5. Proactive and Positive: You approach change management proactively and you have a positive attitude towards supporting company goals.
6. Inclusive Leadership: Your strong leadership skills give you the ability to foster a supportive, inclusive, and high-performing team environment. You demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
7. A fluent level of English (French is not a must).

Diverse, cross-cultural team.

Annual All Staff gathering week, office parties, team offsites.

Top-notch 8-week onboarding programme for new teammates, including live presentations, online courses you can take at your own pace, and an exhaustive checklist with all the resources, calls-to-action and support contacts for a smooth integration into the company.

The position is open in the lovely city of Nantes: Enjoy a 19th-century historical building, tour our private garden and stop by the pond while doing your team catch-up. We also do great barbecues when the sun is out.

General: Competitive package and complementary health insurance.

Time off: Flexible working hours and hybrid setup (up to 3-4 days per week working from home). 33 days paid leave if you are the second parent (instead of 28 days). Work from Anywhere Scheme - Explore the possibility of working from anywhere in the world for up to 30 days per year.

Health & Wellness: Individual and confidential coaching sessions with a mental health practitioner of your choice. Massage sessions offered regularly and at a reduced price.

Equipment: Best-in-class communication and collaboration tools: Slack, Notion, Google Suite, Jira, GitHub. Choose between MacOS or Linux. Personal remote allowance to maximize your home office environment.

Professional Development: Participation in in-house events welcoming external guests (i.e. Meetups) or industry events. A €1,000 learning budget per employee per year.

Perks & Discounts: Get your Swile lunch card funded at 50% by the company. Receive a 50% discount on the transportation pass of your choice. Comité Social et Economique: advantages and deductions on cultural activities, entertainment etc. Take advantage of our company crèche whether you need a nursery spot (subject to availability), emergency childcare, or care for Wednesdays and school vacations.

Corporate Responsibility: Employee Volunteering program: give back to the community with two days per year dedicated to supporting the charities of your choice. Join one or several of our Employee Resource Groups and take an active part in promoting diversity and inclusion within our company. Diversity & Inclusion: Akeneo provides and ensures a safe work environment for everyone, regardless of seniority, gender identity, and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other characteristics. Akeneo is deeply anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist, anti-ableist, and inclusive. We create the right conditions for you to feel safe and be yourself!

Interview process:

1. Say hi! If your application has caught our attention, you will receive an invitation to a 30-minute conversation with Marie-Anaïs, where you’ll learn more about the role and about Akeneo.
2. Meet your future manager! This 45-minute interview will allow you to go in more depth into what the role entails and discuss your experience and skills.
3. Technical deep dive! You will spend 90 minutes with a Staff Engineer to discuss how you would solve a complex problem with limited knowledge and understanding. They are looking to see how you think critically, expose gaps, navigate ambiguity, focus on impact and drive execution.
4. Behavioural deep dive! You will spend 90 minutes with a cross-functional panel of peers. They are looking to see what it's like to work with you and how you add to our values. This interview relies heavily on examples from your past, so take some time to think back and write down some so you are best prepared.
5. Leadership deep dive! You will spend 90 minutes with other Engineering Managers to evaluate what is your leadership management style and how you may perform behave in challenging situations. It’s also a good opportunity to understand what level of autonomy, decision making and ownership we expect at Akeneo.
6. Sign your offer!

At all stages of your recruitment process, our Talent Acquisition team is committed to giving you an update in a one-week time frame.

So? Is this job description all about you? Then what are you waiting for - click that Apply button so that we can meet you without further delay! Feeling hesitant because you think you’re not checking 100% of the requirements for the job, but still feel confident and motivated to grow into the position? Don’t hesitate to apply anyway, or reach out to us for questions or clarifications!