Manager, Software Engineering

Natera is seeking a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead a global software development team supporting women's health and non-invasive prenatal testing. The role combines technical leadership and hands-on software development with AI-enabled workflow transformation, project delivery, team development, and collaboration across product, laboratory, bioinformatics, clinical, and quality partners.

Responsibilities:

• Provide technical leadership for a software development team, US-based and international, to deliver high-quality software on time and on budget
• Lead technical design, architecture, and implementation strategy for the team's services and integrations
• Establish and model engineering best practices, including how AI tools are used safely in a regulated environment
• Write production code on the team's services, taking tickets yourself, especially on critical-path and cross-team work
• Review merge requests every week. Hold a high bar for correctness, test coverage, and maintainability, whether the code was written by hand or with AI assistance
• Contribute directly to testing: write and extend automated tests, verify changes before release, and help triage production issues
• Stay close enough to the code to make sound technical calls and credible estimates
• Use AI coding assistants and agentic tools (for example Claude Code, GitHub, Cursor) in your own daily work, and coach your team to do the same
• Redesign the team's workflow around AI:
• AI-assisted ticket refinement and spec-driven development
• AI-assisted code review
• AI-generated tests
• Automation of repetitive work
• Build a cross-functional team where developers and test engineers both build and verify, and no one verifies their own work
• Measure AI's impact against the team's own baseline (cycle time, lead time, quality, time from grooming to ready) and share what works with other teams
• Keep people accountable for AI-assisted work, so that it meets our review, traceability, validation, and compliance requirements
• Manage multiple concurrent projects spanning product launches, platform migrations, and production support
• Identify project objectives, the scope of software deliverables, external dependencies, resources, risks, and a framework for the project activities
• Facilitate collaboration and resolve issues, evaluate project performance, bring projects to delivery, and act on the lessons learned
• Lead team meetings and Agile rituals such as stand-ups, retrospectives, planning sessions, and demos
• Guide the career development of team members and grow their technical, interpersonal, and AI skills
• Provide individual performance feedback focused on recognition of achievement and opportunities for growth
• Conduct 1:1s, performance evaluations, and more
• Recruit and hire strong, diverse talent
• Build and maintain ongoing strong working relationships with stakeholders, focus on building effective communication channels
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with product management, laboratory operations, bioinformatics, clinical, and quality partners
• Provide feedback to management and initiate change to optimize software development processes with focus on quality, innovation, and efficient product delivery

Requirements:

• BS or MS degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• 2+ years of proven track record of building and managing high performance engineering teams
• 5+ years of experience in software development using Java or similar languages
• Practical, daily experience with AI coding tools and agentic workflows, and experience helping a team adopt them
• Experience in and aptitude for leading remote teams
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Passion for people management and mentorship
• Proven record of managing highly effective engineering teams
• Willingness and ability to manage global teams across multiple time zones
• Focus on recruiting strong and diverse talent
• Strong experience mentoring developers and test engineers, seeking out opportunities and giving guidance so engineers grow and excel
• Excellent project management skills in Agile environments
• Experience building enterprise back-end services using Java/Spring Boot or similar
• Experience with distributed and event-driven systems such as Kafka, workflow orchestration such as Temporal, relational databases, and AWS
• Hands-on coding, design, architecture, and code-review skills
• Test automation experience, and a habit of building quality in rather than inspecting it in
• A track record of using AI to measurably improve a team's delivery, backed by data rather than anecdotes
• Sound judgment about where AI helps and where it needs guardrails: verification, security, patient data privacy, and validation of regulated software
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally and communicate effectively with reports, peers, and stakeholders
• Initiative: a proactive approach to addressing issues and finding creative solutions
• A strong work ethic and the ability to work well under pressure and in stressful circumstances
• Experience in biotech, diagnostics, healthcare, or another regulated industry a strong plus
• Experience with Next Generation Sequencing data, bioinformatics pipelines, or genomics workflow platforms is a plus
• Experience developing software in a regulated environment (e.g., CLIA/CAP, FDA design controls, 21 CFR Part 11) is a plus