Engineering Manager

About Us
At Nextlane, we don't just develop software solutions – we create the future of the automotive industry. We are a company that combines advanced technology with a clear vision: simplifying and digitizing every step of the automotive customer journey, empowering manufacturers and dealerships to thrive in a constantly evolving market. We believe in the value of every team member, offering opportunities for you to develop and contribute to meaningful solutions. So... What does it mean to be a #Nextlaner?

Be part of agrowth-oriented culture. Collaborate with colleagues from all over the world. Believe in the Power of ideas and the diversity of thought. Be committed to provide an environment where you can learn, grow, and collaborate on projects that make a global impact. Our success is measured not just by results, but also by the growth and satisfaction of those who are part of our company. At Nextlane, you'll have the opportunity to innovate, push boundaries, and work on solutions that are transforming the automotive world.

Your

Responsibilities:
As Engineering Manager for Platform, you will lead a team of 8-10 engineers across France, Portugal and Spain, responsible for the APIs, the API gateway and the integration services that connect Nextlane's products with dealers, partners, OEMs, and each DMS and CRM. Reporting to the VP Engineering
- Platform, you will be accountable for team development, delivery predictability, service reliability and security, and the technical sustainability of the platform.

You will partner closely with Platform Product, Architecture, Security, Dev Ops, Customer Success, the OEM Interfaces and DMS/CRM teams, and the product teams that build on the platform. Product owns the vision, the roadmap, and the what and why; you own engineering capacity, delivery planning, and the when and how.

You will treat the teams that depend on the platform as customers: agree contracts and service levels with them, make risks, dependencies and trade-offs visible, and say no with reasons when you need to. This is a technically credible leadership role, not a full-time coding position.

You must be able to review API and integration designs, challenge architectural decisions, guide engineers, and go into the code or production diagnostics when an incident needs it. This role needs a change-oriented leader who can improve how the platform is built and run while keeping it available to the products, partners and dealers that depend on it.

• Team Leadership & Development Lead, coach and grow a team of 8-10 engineers across France, Portugal and Spain. Hold regular one-to-ones, give clear feedback, manage performance, build career plans. Own the team's hiring, onboarding, capability planning and succession. Grow technical leadership inside the team, with clear accountability. Build a team where people learn continuously and feel safe to raise problems early.
• Platform, APIs & Integrations Own the reliability and evolution of the APIs and integration services Nextlane's products, partners, dealers and OEMs depend on: the API gateway, the integration layer and the connectivity to each DMS and CRM. Treat APIs as products: clear contracts, versioning and deprecation rules, backward compatibility, documentation consumers can trust. Agree interfaces and service levels with the product teams building on the platform, and make it easy to adopt: self-service onboarding, SDKs, contract tests. Help move integrations onto the platform's shared front door, working with the OEM Interfaces and DMS/CRM teams on common standards. Build security into every API: authentication and authorisation, secrets management, rate limiting, vulnerabilities fixed on time.
• Delivery Ownership & Predictability Turn roadmap priorities into realistic plans, with estimates and dates you revise openly when things change. Own sprint planning, capacity, reviews and retrospectives, and protect the team from unplanned scope. Present the team's plan, commitments and dependencies in each planning cycle. Manage a platform's many cross-team dependencies, and release readiness. Use delivery metrics to improve predictability and report progress honestly.
• Product & Cross-Functional Partnership Work with Platform Product in a clear model: product owns the what and why, engineering owns the when and how. Make sure work is ready before it's committed; challenge unclear requirements. Ensure every platform change is reviewed and merged by the team that owns it. Bring engineering input to discovery, feasibility and the roadmap; handle critical technical escalations with other teams and customers.
• Quality, SDLC & Operational Excellence Run a disciplined, traceable SDLC with Jira as the source of truth: Definitions of Ready and Done, quality gates, release criteria. Build the right automated-testing strategy, including contract tests for the APIs others depend on. Define and meet s