Senior Manager, Backend

Who we are: 

 At WeightWatchers, our Engineering Team drives transformative change by leveraging technology to redefine how millions approach weight health and wellness. The team builds digital solutions that establish personalized connections and foster inclusive virtual communities, empowering members to adopt healthier habits and achieve lasting lifestyle changes. From pioneering a comprehensive telehealth platform, optimizing medication access, diving headfirst into exciting AI integrations we lead with data-driven innovations that revolutionize healthcare outcomes. Our culture thrives on urgency, collaboration, and a passion for impactful work that directly improves the lives of our members.

What you'll do:

As a Senior Manager of Backend Engineering, you will lead the teams responsible for the core systems that power the WeightWatchers member experience. Your mission is to build, scale, and mentor high-performing engineering teams that deliver a member platform that is simple, fast, safe, and scalable.

You will be responsible for the health, growth, and delivery of multiple backend squads. You will partner closely with Infra, Product, Data, and Design to turn technical strategy into a reliable reality for millions of members worldwide

Role Overview: 

1) People Leadership and Team Growth

• Talent Development: Recruit, manage, and mentor a diverse team of backend engineers, from entry-level to Principal level.
• Culture of Excellence: Foster an engineering culture focused on operational readiness, documentation, incident learning, and continuous improvement.
• Empowerment: Create an environment where teams have clear ownership boundaries and the autonomy to ship quickly without fragmenting the ecosystem.

2) Delivery and Operational Excellence

• Execution Roadmap: Drive the execution of multi-quarter technical strategies for the member platform, aligning your teams on the "why," "what," and "how".
• SLO-Driven Management: Ensure teams define and meet SLIs/SLOs that reflect member happiness, prioritizing reliability and performance in "moments that matter".
• Process Optimization: Identify and remove structural bottlenecks - such as brittle integrations or duplicated micro-services - to accelerate delivery across product squads.

3) Backend Platform and Data Integrity

• Strategic Oversight: Oversee the backend services powering member identity, food databases, and tracking foundations to ensure they are trustworthy and scalable.
• Data Stewardship: Partner with Data and ML teams to ensure backend systems provide reliable, well-modeled data for journey personalization and experimentation.
• Modernization: Lead your teams through the transition to modern cloud architectures and event-driven patterns that support a global digital health platform.

4) Strategic Partnership and Communication

• Cross-Functional Alignment: Act as a key partner to Product and Design to ensure backend systems are built for iteration and measurable outcomes.
• Technical Advocacy: Translate technical debt, risks, and architectural needs into crisp options and consequences for executive and cross-functional forums.
• Trust Building: Build trust through clarity, predictable follow-through, and calm leadership under pressure.

^{Key Responsibilities}

• Manage the end-to-end delivery of backend features and platform components across multiple squads.
• Lead performance reviews, career development discussions, and workforce planning for your organization.
• Review technical designs and drive decision-making on hard tradeoffs between speed, quality, and cost.
• Embed security and compliance (HIPAA-adjacent workflows) into standard team practices.
• Drive a "FinOps" mindset, ensuring backend systems scale sustainably while balancing cloud costs.

Who You Are

• Leader of Leaders: You have a proven track record of managing and scaling engineering teams at a system-wide level.
• Pragmatic Manager: You anchor team priorities in member outcomes and business impact, avoiding unnecessary complexity.
• Effective Communicator: You produce clear documentation and can influence stakeholders across competing priorities.
• Systems Thinker: You can zoom from high-level roadmap planning to deep-diving into execution details when necessary.
• Experience: 8+ years in backend engineering with 3+ years in a formal management or leadership role for large-scale consumer systems.
• Technical Depth: Strong understanding of modern distributed systems (AWS), APIs, and data modeling for high-scale environments.
• Execution Track Record: Proven ability to lead cross-team initiatives from design through successful production adoption.
• Educational Background: Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.