Engineering Manager, Identity

Superhuman Superhuman · Consumer · Hub - San Francisco · Engineering, Product, Design, and Marketing

Engineering Manager for the Identity team at Superhuman, which powers authentication, authorization, and user identity for all Superhuman products (Grammarly, Coda, Mail, Go). The role involves leading a team of 6-8 engineers to build and operate high-availability services, modernize the identity stack, and ensure reliability and security for tens of millions of users.

What you'd actually do

  1. Drive cross-product identity delivery. Lead the team in building and shipping authentication, authorization, and identity features that span Grammarly, Coda, Mail, and Go — navigating the complexity of a multi-product platform while maintaining a high quality and reliability bar.
  2. Modernize the identity stack. Champion the evolution of Superhuman’s identity platform — driving migrations from legacy infrastructure to Kubernetes, Aurora PostgreSQL, and a unified backend monorepo. Partner with your engineers to retire technical debt, improve developer experience, and build a foundation that scales with the company’s multi-product ambitions.
  3. Manage and grow a high-performing team. Coach, develop, and retain a team of 6–8 engineers across the US and EU. Set clear expectations, run effective 1:1s and team rituals, and create an environment where engineers do the best work of their careers.
  4. Set technical direction with your team. Partner with your tech lead and senior engineers to make sound architectural decisions across OAuth, SSO, session management, and fraud detection — balancing long-term platform health with near-term delivery needs.
  5. Navigate competing priorities with clarity. The Identity team sits at the intersection of every product. You’ll triage cross-team requests, protect engineering focus, and ensure the team is working on what matters most.

Skills

Required

  • 7+ years of software engineering experience
  • at least 3 years managing engineering teams
  • Experience building and operating identity, authentication, or security infrastructure at scale (OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, SSO, or similar)
  • Strong technical depth — you can review designs, debug production issues, and earn the trust of senior engineers
  • Track record of delivering complex cross-team or cross-product projects on time
  • Experience managing distributed teams and navigating the communication challenges that come with it
  • Excellent prioritization instincts — you know when to push back on requests and when to lean in
  • Clear, concise communicator who can translate technical complexity for non-technical stakeholders

Nice to have

  • Experience with Java/Spring Boot and cloud infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform)
  • Background in high-availability systems serving millions of users
  • Familiarity with enterprise identity requirements (SCIM provisioning, SAML federation, SOC 2 compliance)
  • Experience leading teams through major infrastructure migrations

What the JD emphasized

  • high-availability services
  • reliability and security bar
  • enterprise customers
  • high-availability systems serving millions of users