Job Title: Software Engineering Manager
Company: LawnStarter
Job Type: Contract-based, fully remote, structured work hours with reasonable flexibility
Location: Remote.
Salary/Pay: USD 120,000 - 140,000 per year
Experience: Prior experience as an engineering manager, including leading fully remote teams as a default.
Skills Required:
- Proven people leadership, including concrete examples of growth plans, hard conversations, and structured management of underperformers
- Experience leading fully remote, distributed teams with async decision-making
- Deep AI integration: actively introducing AI tools into team workflows (for example, Claude, Copilot, AI-assisted code review) and setting the pace on adoption
- Directness in handling conflict quickly
- Data-driven approach to people and delivery (velocity, retention risk, IC growth)
- Enough technical credibility to give architectural input, review code, and help debug
- Ability to delegate and build a team that makes good decisions without relying on you
- Ability to coordinate Product, Design, quality engineering, architecture and security from estimation through delivery
- Commitment to people leadership as a primary craft (the role is not a stepping stone back to IC work)
Application Deadline: Nov 4th, 2026
Description:
LawnStarter is a leading on-demand marketplace for lawn care and outdoor home services, with over $150M in annual bookings. It is expanding into services such as pest control, pool cleaning, and window cleaning. Its engineering team builds the platform that connects hundreds of thousands of homeowners with over 70,000 active service pros and runs three brands (LawnStarter, Lawn Love, HomeGnome) on shared infrastructure. The company is profitable and growing.
The company is adding engineering leadership capacity. You will lead a cross-functional delivery team of 4-5 engineers and report to the Head of Engineering. This is a people-first role that owns both delivery and people outcomes.
Key responsibilities include:
- People development: documented growth plans for every engineer on the team
- Delivery: shipping on cadence with predictable quality, surfacing risk early and managing scope
- Team health: addressing conflict directly, managing underperformers through a clear process and developing top performers
- Cross-functional partnership between the team and Product, Design, and other engineering teams
- Technical direction: weighing in on system design and catching architectural risks without getting stuck in the weeds
- AI adoption: bringing AI tools and workflows into code review, documentation, sprint planning and debugging
Year 1 success looks like documented growth plans for every engineer within 60 days, committed scope shipped on cadence within 90 days, no surprise departures, underperformance addressed directly, and a visibly more AI-enabled team.
How to Apply:
Apply through We Work Remotely.