Engineering Manager, Mobile at whatnot

This senior-level leadership role is designed for a mobile engineering veteran with at least 10 years of experience who has transitioned into managing managers

Work type: onsite

Location: San Francisco, CA | Los Angeles, CA | Seattle, WA | New York, NY

Salary: $280,000 – $330,000/yr

Type: Full-time

Summary

This senior-level leadership role is designed for a mobile engineering veteran with at least 10 years of experience who has transitioned into managing managers or multiple high-impact teams. You should have a deep technical background in iOS and Android, specifically focused on "platform" concerns like performance, observability, and developer experience (DevEx) rather than just building consumer features. The compensation is highly competitive, starting at $280,000 plus equity and a 4% 401k match. While the role is tied to hubs in SF, LA, Seattle, or NYC, the culture emphasizes a "remote co-located" hybrid model with unique perks, including 16 weeks of parental leave, a "dogfooding" budget to shop on the platform, and dedicated spring and winter breaks. **You might be a good fit if you...** * Have successfully led and scaled mobile engineering organizations at a high-growth startup or major tech platform. * Prioritize app stability and speed, with a strong intuition for diagnosing complex production issues. * Enjoy mentoring senior Individual Contributors (ICs) and other managers to build a strong leadership pipeline. * Can navigate cross-functional tradeoffs between infrastructure needs and product delivery.

Job Description

## 🚀 Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!

Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops.

As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our [values](https://www.whatnot.com/careers) and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact.

We're one of the [fastest growing marketplaces](https://a16z.com/marketplace-100/) and were recently named the [#1 Best Startup Employer in America](http://google.com/search?q=%231+forbes+startup+employer&oq=%231+forbes+startup+employer&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg9MgYIAhBFGD0yBggDEEUYQDIGCAQQRRhAMgYIBRBFGEDSAQg1NzM0ajBqMagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our [news](https://blog.teamwhatnot.com/) and [engineering blogs](https://medium.com/whatnot-engineering) and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.

## 💻 Role

As a senior leader within App Platform Engineering, you will play a critical role in shaping the future of Whatnot’s mobile experience. You will lead teams responsible for the mobile foundations that power iOS and Android, partnering closely with product, design, infrastructure, and other platform teams to ensure our apps are fast, reliable, observable, and built to scale.

This role is ideal for a leader who combines strong mobile technical instincts with organizational leadership, and who thrives in highly cross-functional environments. You will help set direction, build alignment, and raise the bar for mobile quality and performance across the company.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor a team of highly skilled engineers, guiding them through complex Lead and mentor multiple mobile-focused engineering teams, supporting both iOS and Android development and fostering strong technical leadership across platforms.

• Define and drive a long-term mobile platform strategy, balancing near-term delivery with foundational investments in performance, reliability, and developer experience.

• Champion mobile performance and observability, ensuring teams deeply understand app health, user experience metrics, and production behavior at scale.

• Partner closely with product, design, infrastructure, and data teams to ensure mobile architecture and execution align with broader company goals.

• Drive clarity and alignment across teams by setting expectations, building buy-in, and navigating complex cross-functional tradeoffs.

• Establish and evolve best practices around mobile architecture, testing, release quality, and technical debt management.

• Support and grow senior ICs and managers, creating clear growth paths and a strong bench of mobile leadership.

## 👋 You

Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that embodying a low ego, growth mindset, and high-impact drive goes a long way here.

In addition to embodying[ our cultural principles](https://www.whatnot.com/careers#:~:text=time%20and%20schedule.-,Our%20Principles,-Be%20part%20of), great candidates will also have:

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with significant experience leading mobile teams (iOS, Android, or both).

• A strong technical foundation in mobile application architecture, performance optimization, and production reliability.

• Deep familiarity with mobile observability and performance tooling, and a strong intuition for diagnosing real-world app issues.

• Experience leading teams through ambiguous, high-impact initiatives that require cross-team coordination and influence.

• A collaborative leadership style — comfortable driving decisions and navigating trade-offs.

• Proven ability to scale teams, develop leaders, and create healthy, high-performing engineering cultures.

• Comfort operating at both the strategic and tactical levels, with the judgment to know when to zoom in and when to step back.

• Bonus: experience working closely with backend or platform teams, or contributing to backend systems directly earlier in your career.

$280,000/year to $330,000/year + benefits + equity.

The salary range may be inclusive of several levels that would be applicable to the position. Final salary will be based on a number of factors including, level, relevant prior experience, skills, and expertise. This range is only inclusive of base salary, not benefits (more details below) or equity.

## 🎁 Benefits

• Flexible Time off Policy and Company-wide Holidays (including a spring and winter break)

• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision

• Work From Home Support

• Home office setup allowance

• Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet

• Care benefits

• Monthly allowance for wellness

• Annual allowance towards Childcare

• Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses

• Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally

• Monthly allowance to dogfood the app

• All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).

• Parental Leave

• 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.

## 💛 EOE

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.

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