Senior Engineering Manager

About the role

NielsenIQ is looking for a Senior Engineering Manager for its NIQ Activate R&D organization, reporting to the Director, Activate R&D. The role leads a team of software engineers building innovative product solutions for a growing customer base, using modern client and server-side technologies. It is a hands-on leadership position split roughly 50/50 between engineering leadership (technical reviews, planning, stakeholder management, talent development, delivery oversight) and hands-on software engineering (architecture, coding, design reviews, technical problem solving).

Key responsibilities

• Design, develop and deliver scalable microservices from architecture through production deployment.
• Lead backend system design and implementation, keeping solutions robust, secure and maintainable.
• Use GitHub Copilot and AI-assisted development tools to speed delivery and improve code quality.
• Own the team's development, maintenance, testing strategy, design discussions and operations of containerized API services.
• Take part in agile software development, from design and implementation to deployment.
• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of new product features and components, ensuring performance, uptime and scale.
• Work with a small cross-functional team, research and suggest new technologies, and influence system architecture and development practices.

Required profile

• B.Sc. in computer science or equivalent.
• 12+ years as a backend developer, with at least 4+ years in team management.
• 3+ years in Python.
• Strong problem-solving and analysis abilities.
• Advantageous: experience building agentic AI systems or autonomous agents, and knowledge of agent frameworks and reasoning patterns such as ReAct and Chain-of-Thought.

Required skills

• Server-side technologies: Java, Spring Boot, SQL, Agentic AI.
• Strong React experience.
• Large-scale SQL / NoSQL databases (SingleStore, PostgreSQL).
• Good to have: Docker, Kubernetes, cloud environments, Azure / GCP, Azure OpenAI and Azure AI services, and Agile or XP experience.

What we offer

• Flexible working environment.
• Volunteer time off.
• LinkedIn Learning.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP).