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Senior Engineering Manager Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

About the Role As an early Engineering Manager at Unify GTM, you'll be stepping into a rare opportunity: shaping the DNA of an early-stage, high-velocity engineering org that's building with the ...

THE ROLE Senior Engineering Manager, MLOps We are seeking a Senior Engineering Manager, MLOps to join our growing team. The ideal candidate is a technical visionary with a proven track record of ...

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Senior Engineering Manager information

See California salary details

$62.7K

$134.4K

$195.4K

How much do senior engineering manager jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 5, 2026, the average yearly pay for senior engineering manager in California is $134,363.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $112,000.00 and $160,900.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is a senior engineering manager?

A Senior Engineering Manager is a seasoned leader responsible for overseeing multiple engineering teams or large projects within an organization. They manage engineering managers or team leads, set technical direction, and ensure alignment with business goals. Their duties include mentoring staff, driving process improvements, managing budgets, and collaborating with other departments. Senior Engineering Managers play a key role in hiring, performance evaluations, and fostering a productive engineering culture. They typically have extensive industry experience and strong leadership skills.

What is a senior engineering manager?

Senior engineering managers oversee the project team to ensure each phase is completed accurately, on time, and within budget. They coordinate with the company’s marketing and sales departments to determine what products or services are offered to clients and then develop those offerings to specifications. As a senior engineering manager, you may also need to troubleshoot equipment or software. To become a senior engineering manager, you need a certificate or degree in computer science or a related field, several years of working in software development, and management experience.

How does a senior engineering manager typically balance technical leadership with people management responsibilities?

A Senior Engineering Manager often splits their time between guiding technical strategy and supporting their team’s professional development. This involves overseeing complex engineering projects, setting clear technical direction, and ensuring best practices are followed, while also mentoring engineers, conducting performance reviews, and fostering a collaborative team culture. Balancing these areas requires strong delegation, prioritization, and communication skills, as well as regularly collaborating with other departments like Product and Design to align goals. Most organizations expect Senior Engineering Managers to actively contribute to both technical and people-focused initiatives, which can be challenging but is essential for team and project success.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a senior engineering manager, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Senior Engineering Manager, you need a robust background in engineering principles, leadership experience, and a relevant degree, often complemented by prior management roles. Familiarity with project management tools (such as Jira or Asana), software development methodologies (like Agile), and technical certifications can be highly beneficial. Exceptional communication, conflict resolution, and mentoring skills set top performers apart in this role. These skills are vital for effectively guiding teams, delivering projects on time, and fostering an innovative and collaborative engineering environment.

What is the difference between Senior Engineering Manager vs Engineering Director?

AspectSenior Engineering ManagerEngineering Director
ResponsibilitiesOversees multiple engineering teams, manages project delivery, and mentors managersSets strategic direction, manages multiple departments, and aligns engineering goals with company objectives
Required CredentialsBachelor's or Master's in Engineering or related field, 8+ years experience, leadership skillsSimilar credentials, often with 10+ years experience, strategic planning skills
Work EnvironmentHands-on team management within engineering teamsHigh-level strategic planning, cross-department coordination
Industry UsageCommon in tech companies, startups, and large enterprisesTypically found in larger organizations with complex structures

While both roles require strong technical backgrounds and leadership skills, Senior Engineering Managers focus more on team management and project execution, whereas Engineering Directors are responsible for strategic planning and organizational alignment across multiple teams.

What are the most commonly searched types of Senior Engineering jobs in California?

The most popular types of Senior Engineering jobs in California are:

What are popular job titles related to Senior Engineering Manager jobs in California?

For Senior Engineering Manager jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:

What job categories do people searching Senior Engineering Manager jobs in California look for?

The top searched job categories for Senior Engineering Manager jobs in California are:

What cities in California are hiring for Senior Engineering Manager jobs?

Cities in California with the most Senior Engineering Manager job openings:

Infographic showing various Senior Engineering Manager job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 85% Full Time, 14% Part Time, and 1% Contract. Highlights an 87% Physical, 2% Hybrid, and 11% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $134,363 per year, or $64.6 per hour.

Senior Engineering Manager (Backend & Platform)

Monitise

Sunnyvale, CA • On-site

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Retirement

Re-posted 7 days ago


Job description

Calling all innovators - find your future at Fiserv.

We're Fiserv, a global leader in Fintech and payments, and we move money and information in a way that moves the world. We connect financial institutions, corporations, merchants and consumers to one another millions of times a day - quickly, reliably, and securely. Any time you swipe your credit card, pay through a mobile app, or withdraw money from the bank, we're involved. If you want to make an impact on a global scale, come make a difference at Fiserv.

Job Title

Senior Engineering Manager (Backend & Platform)

About Your Role

Fiserv is a global leader in payments and financial technology, delivering end-to-end merchant and point-of-sale platforms-such as Clover-that power millions of businesses worldwide. In this role, you will serve as a Senior Engineering Manager driving both the people strategy and technical execution behind core, high-volume enterprise backend systems. You will lead, grow, and empower high-performing engineering teams responsible for building and operating resilient, low-latency transactional platforms capable of processing thousands of operations per second with multi-nine availability.

What You'll Do

  • Manage, mentor, and grow a team of Tech Leads, Senior Software Engineers, and Backend Developers across multiple Scrum teams, fostering an inclusive, high-accountability engineering culture.
  • Lead engineering execution and software delivery across Agile teams, partnering with Product and Business leadership to align roadmaps, scope technical deliverables, and manage cross-team dependencies.
  • Drive the technical strategy and architectural execution for high-throughput Java microservices, cloud-native systems, and event-driven architectures processing financial transactions at scale.
  • Establish operational excellence, governance standards, non-functional requirements (NFRs), and observability protocols to guarantee platform reliability, zero-downtime deployments, and fast incident recovery.
  • Direct technology modernization roadmaps, API contract standards, and data architecture strategies across relational and NoSQL databases.
  • Responsibilities listed are not intended to be all-inclusive and may be modified as necessary.

Experience You'll Need to Have

  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field
  • 12+ total years of progressive software engineering experience.
  • 3+ years of direct people management experience leading software engineering teams (including managing Tech Leads, Senior Engineers, and IC developers).
  • Strong technical mastery within the Java ecosystem, including Spring Boot, microservices architecture, RESTful API design, and distributed message brokers (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or Google Pub/Sub).
  • 3+ years of experience with relational (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis) databases, including query optimization and data modeling.
  • Proven experience building and deploying cloud-native applications (AWS, GCP, or Azure) using Docker, Kubernetes, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
  • Demonstrated understanding of JVM performance profiling, memory management, and scaling high-concurrency, low-latency systems.

Experience That Would Be Great to Have

  • Previous engineering leadership experience within Fintech, payments processing, merchant POS platforms, or financial settlement pipelines.
  • Familiarity with polyglot environments or secondary languages (Python, Go, Node.js) for automation, data pipelines, or full-stack integration.
  • Experience with reactive programming (Spring WebFlux), serverless infrastructure (GCP Functions, AWS Lambda), or event-driven architectures.
  • Knowledge of payment security protocols and compliance standards, including PCI-DSS, tokenization, and mTLS security.
  • Familiarity with integrating Generative AI models, LLMs, or AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor) into software engineering workflows.

How you'll work:

  • This role is on-site Monday through Friday. Fiserv considers in-person collaboration to be an essential part of this role as in-person office experiences help you with your overall onboarding experience and leads to stronger productivity.
  • This role requires use of a computer and audio equipment.

Benefits at Fiserv:

  • Fuel Your Life program to support your physical, financial, social, and emotional well-being
  • Paid holidays and generous time away policies
  • No-cost mental health support through Employee Assistance Programs
  • Living Proof program to recognize your peers' extra effort with points redeemable for rewards
  • Eight Employee Resource Groups to foster a collaborative culture and expand your network
  • Unparalleled professional growth with training, development, and internal mobility opportunities
  • Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance options available from day one
  • Retirement planning and discounted shares with the Employee Stock Purchase Plan
  • Tuition assistance and reimbursement program
  • Paid parental, caregiver, and military leave

#LI-SH2

Salary Range

$160,000.00 - $240,000.00

These pay ranges apply to employees in Sunnyvale, California. Pay ranges for employees in other states may differ.

It is unlawful to discriminate against a prospective employee due to the individual's status as a veteran.

For incentive eligible associates, the successful candidate is eligible for an annual incentive opportunity which may be delivered as a mix of cash bonus and equity awards in the Company's sole discretion.

Thank you for considering employment with Fiserv. Please:

  • Apply using your legal name
  • Complete the step-by-step profile and attach your resume (either is acceptable, both are preferable).

Our commitment to Equal Opportunity:

Fiserv is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other category protected by law.

If you have a disability and require a reasonable accommodation in completing a job application or otherwise participating in the overall hiring process, please contactAskHR.US@fiserv.com. Please note our AskHR representatives do not have visibility to your application status. Current associates who require a workplace accommodation should refer to Fiserv's Disability Accommodation Policy for additional information.

Note to agencies:

Fiserv does not accept resume submissions from agencies outside of existing agreements.Please do not send resumes to Fiserv associates. Fiserv is not responsible for any fees associated with unsolicited resume submissions.

Warning about fake job posts:

Please be aware of fraudulent job postings that are not affiliated with Fiserv. Fraudulent job postings may be used by cyber criminals to target your personally identifiable information and/or to steal money or financial information. Any communications from a Fiserv representative will come from a legitimate Fiserv email address.