Senior Engineering Manager (Full Stack/Backend) | Privacy & Identity Platform | Berlin | 140.000 EUR + Bonus + Equity

Senior Engineering Manager (Full Stack/Backend) | Privacy & Identity Platform | Berlin | 140.000 EUR + Bonus + EquityCompensation and benefits€130k-140k base + 15% annual bonus + equity (VSOPs)Hybrid working from Berlin, flexible hoursUnlimited vacation, learning budget, home office allowance, Urban Sports Club membershipThe company A well-funded technology company on a mission to change how data ownership works on the internet. They're building the trust and identity infrastructure that modern digital services increasingly need - privacy-first, decentralised, and genuinely differentiated in a space that's only getting more important. Small, senior team. Serious technical culture. Berlin-based with a globally distributed engineering organisation. The role This is a hands-on Senior Engineering Manager position leading a core platform team. You will own delivery, architecture direction, and the technical bar for a team of 7-12 engineers building distributed systems at the intersection of identity, privacy, and data ownership. The key thing to understand about this role: it is not a coordination or programme management position. The expectation is that you stay technically close to the work. You will act as a quality gate between product intent and engineering execution - scoping ambiguity out before it reaches your team, catching architectural issues at the design stage, and running system design conversations rather than just sitting in them. If you've deliberately stayed hands-on as you've grown into leadership, this is the role for you. What you'll doLead a cross-functional engineering team delivering on a high-scale, privacy-first platform - primarily TypeScript, Node.js and ReactOwn architecture decisions, ADRs, and the RFC process for your domainAct as a technical filter upstream of your team - the person who catches the hard problems before they become expensive onesPartner with Product and Design to shape technical vision and roadmapHire, grow and retain strong engineers, including building pathways to Staff and Principal levelChampion engineering excellence: clean architecture, CI/CD, TDD, observability and performanceDrive AI-assisted development practices and contribute to an agentic engineering cultureWhat they're looking for5+ years in engineering management, with experience leading through other EMs or senior engineersStrong hands-on technical foundation in TypeScript, Node.js and cloud-native backend systems (AWS preferred)Real system design depth - you can lead a system design session, not just participate in oneExperience operating distributed systems at meaningful scale in a production environmentBackground in regulated, security-conscious or privacy-adjacent domains (identity, fintech, compliance) is a significant advantageStartup or scale-up experience - comfortable with ambiguity and building from first principlesFamiliarity with modern AI engineering tooling (Claude Code, LangChain, MCP or similar) is a strong signalBased in Berlin or open to relocating