Engineering Manager - Developer Experience

ABOUT US

Pliant is a European fintech specializing in B2B payment solutions. Our modular, API-first platform helps businesses streamline spending, improve cash flow, and integrate payments into their financial workflows. Designed for industries with complex payment needs, such as travel and fleet, Pliant enables greater efficiency, control, and profitability.

We serve two primary customer segments:

• Companies looking to optimize operational processes through intuitive apps and APIs, gaining control, automation, and financial flexibility through extended credit lines.
• Businesses such as financial software platforms, ERP providers, and banks that want to launch or enhance their credit card offerings using Pliant’s embedded finance and white-label solutions.

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Berlin, Pliant supports over 4,000 businesses and more than 20 partners globally. As a licensed e-money institution (EMI), we issue credit cards in 11 currencies across more than 30 countries, helping companies streamline and simplify payments.

getpliant.com

ABOUT THE ROLE

We're seeking an Engineering Manager - Developer Experience (m/f/d) to define and lead a brand-new platform engineering team focused on Developer Experience, the discipline where Pliant ensures every engineer is productive from day one and autonomous from day two.

This is a founding role. You will be the first hire on the team, which means you get to define what great looks like before hiring the engineers to build it alongside you. You will own the golden path that product teams actually use, CI/CD integrations engineers can modify without raising a ticket, self-service environment provisioning, and a Service Registry as the canonical source of truth for everything running on Kubernetes. Initially, you will be heavily hands-on, coding alongside your team, reviewing designs, and making architectural calls. The expectation is that hands-on involvement remains high as the team is built out, with leadership responsibilities growing in parallel as the team matures.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• You use AI-assisted coding tools every day. Claude Code, Cursor, or something equivalent. Not occasionally. You know how to coach engineers who haven't made the shift yet, and you're the one who sets the bar for how the team uses them. Pliant is investing heavily in AI tooling and your team will own the company's AI harness so you need to be its most credible user.
• Own the golden path: Build and maintain deployment templates, opinionated CI/CD patterns on top of our Kubernetes cluster APIs, production readiness checklists, and onboarding flows that get a new service to production without filing a support ticket.
• Own developer satisfaction as a metric: Track golden path adoption rate, deployment lead time, and time-to-first-deploy for new services. When engineers route around the platform, that is your problem to diagnose and fix.
• Standardise AI-assisted development tooling: Lead the team building the AI harness that standardises the usage of assisted development tools across the company, including Claude Code, Cursor, and others.
• Build the team from zero: Own hiring, culture, and the technical bar from the very first hire. The people you bring in first define what this team becomes, and you know that.

WHAT YOU’LL BRING

• 4+ years of software development experience with Python, including 2+ years in leadership/management. Go experience is a strong plus.
• Hands-on experience building CI/CD systems, internal developer portals, or golden paths, with enough codebase familiarity to still be useful. You can read a Helm chart, write a Kubernetes admission webhook, and debug a GitHub Actions runner issue. You do not need to be the fastest IC on the team, but engineers need to trust your technical calls.
• Deep experience with Kubernetes-based platforms specifically, including cluster APIs, namespaces, RBAC, admission control, and deployment patterns well enough to make informed decisions.
• A product mindset for internal tooling. The failure mode for DX teams is building things that get bypassed. You have shipped something internal that people chose over the workaround.
• Experience hiring engineers, including at least one hire that taught you something. Building a team from scratch means the first few hires matter more than usual.
• Security-first thinking that shows up in the design, not just the vocabulary. You know what "shift left" means and you practice it.
• Fintech or regulated-environment experience is a genuine advantage. We operate under PCI DSS and SOC2.
• The product teams run Java and Kotlin, and they'll come to you when something breaks. You don't need to write Java. You do need to read a stack trace, follow a build log, and tell a configuration issue from a code bug. If you've never touched a JVM that's fine as long as you’re willing to learn
• Fluent in English

THE FIRST YEAR

• The first few months are mostly discovery and hiring. You are learning where the friction actually is, writing a team charter, interviewing candidates, and probably fixing at least one thing that has been annoying everyone for longer than it should have.
• By mid-year the team has a few engineers on board and a version of the golden path that is meaningfully better than what existed before.
• By year one the Service Registry is live, golden path adoption is measurable, and your team has a defined roadmap it owns.
• Tech Stack: Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS, Spacelift, GitHub Actions, Datadog.
• We are in the middle of an ECS-to-Kubernetes migration, so there is real new ground to cover from day one.

WHAT WE OFFER

• The opportunity to work in a growing team with big responsibilities that thrives on a strong exchange of knowledge and excellence
• Attractive remuneration
• Your choice of preferred OS, Windows or Mac
• Flat hierarchy and transparent communication in a relaxed, professional atmosphere
• Opportunity to develop your talent in a dynamic team with ambitious goals
• Flexibility and possibility to work remotely
• Monthly mobility benefit
• Wellhub Membership
• Pliant Card with monthly credit to explore the product and enjoy food with colleagues

Pliant is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities and abilities, and are committed to an inclusive hiring process. If you need any accommodations during the interview process, please let us know.