At Sparklight/Cableone and our family of brands, we keep our customers and associates connected to what matters most. For our associates, that means: a thriving and rewarding career, respect for the communities where they live and work, a focus on health and wellness, an excellent work/life balance, and an open and inclusive workplace.
We are open to hiring remote if we find the right talent in any of the following states: AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, LA, MD, MO, MS, NC, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT.
Sparklight is seeking a hands-on Development Manager to lead a cross-functional team that designs, builds, and delivers the digital products and platforms our customers rely on every day. This is a first-line people-leadership role responsible for guiding a blended team of software and web engineers, QA engineers, and front-end developers through the full delivery lifecycle, from concept and design through development, testing, release, and continuous improvement.
The ideal candidate is a player-coach who balances technical depth with strong people-management skills: someone who can remove blockers, raise engineering quality, partner closely with product and business stakeholders, and grow the careers of the engineers they lead.
Key Responsibilities
People Leadership & Team Development
- Lead, coach, and mentor a cross-functional team of engineers, QA, and UX/UI practitioners, fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and high-accountability culture.
- Conduct regular 1:1s, set clear goals and expectations, deliver ongoing feedback, and own performance management and career development for direct reports.
- Partner with talent acquisition to recruit, interview, hire, and onboard team members; build a balanced team across employees and contractors/vendors.
Delivery & Execution
- Plan, prioritize, and manage the team's technology stack and delivery process, ensuring work is scoped, estimated, and delivered on schedule and within agreed quality standards.
- Drive agile delivery practices (e.g., Scrum/Kanban), facilitating development requirements during sprint planning, standups, reviews, and retrospectives that keep the team focused and unblocked.
- Track progress, surface risks early, and communicate status clearly to the department leadership.
Technical Oversight & Quality
- Provide technical guidance and architectural review across the stack; front-end web experiences, back-end services and APIs, and integrations, ensuring sound architecture and maintainable solutions.
- Champion engineering best practices: code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD, secure coding, performance, accessibility, and operational readiness.
- Partner with QA to embed quality throughout the lifecycle and with UX/UI to ensure user-centered, brand-consistent design.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Serve as the primary delivery partner to product management, business stakeholders, and other engineering teams, translating business goals into actionable technical plans.
- Collaborate with peers across Digital Strategy and IT to align on shared platforms, standards, and dependencies.
- Manage relationships with third-party vendors and contractors where applicable, ensuring accountability and value.
Continuous Improvement
- Identify and implement improvements to team processes, tooling, and ways of working that increase velocity, quality, and team satisfaction.
- Stay current with industry trends and emerging technologies, evaluating their fit for the team and the business.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field or equivalent professional experience.
- 5+ years of professional software/web development experience, including hands-on delivery of production applications.
- 2+ years of experience leading, mentoring, or formally managing engineers or a technical team.
- Demonstrated experience delivering software in an agile environment (Scrum, Kanban, or similar).
- Solid understanding of modern web and mobile software development, front-end frameworks, back-end services/APIs, version control, and CI/CD.
- Strong communication skills with the ability to work effectively across technical and non-technical audiences.
- Proven ability to balance competing priorities and deliver in a fast-paced environment.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience managing a cross-functional team that includes QA and/or UX/UI alongside engineering.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, or Vercel) and modern DevOps practices.
- Background in customer-facing digital products, e-commerce, or telecommunications/digital services.
- Experience working with both internal teams and external vendors/contractors.
- Exposure to accessibility (WCAG), web performance, and analytics-driven product improvement.
Technical Environment
This team works across customer-facing web and digital platforms. A representative environment includes:
- Front-End - modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks and responsive web UI.
- Back-End & APIs - service-oriented applications and integrations.
- Quality - automated testing and QA engineering practices.
- Design - close partnership with UX/UI design and design systems.
- Delivery - version control, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud hosting.
Specific technologies will be confirmed during the interview process.
What Success Looks Like (First 6-12 Months)
- Built trust with the team and established a clear, predictable delivery cadence.
- Improved delivery quality and throughput while reducing avoidable defects and rework.
- Established strong working relationships with product and business stakeholders.
- Created individual development plans and visible growth for each team member.