About the Position

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.

Engineering Manager - Platform

Portugal - Sintra

Hybrid

About Us

At Nextlane, we are committed to creating a space where everyone feels valued and respected. We firmly believe that diversity in experiences and backgrounds strengthens our culture and drives innovation.

Responsibilities

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 service-level objectives; own on-call, incident response and post-incident reviews.
Balance roadmap delivery, defects, operational support and technical debt.

Technical Leadership & Modernisation

Review solution designs with our Architecture Practice and challenge choices when needed.
Lead the modernisation of long-lived integration software while keeping the service running.
Make technical debt visible and tie it to business impact.
Lead the Engineering team to AI driven development where sensible, ensuring Platform is ready for AI-enabled use: APIs agents can call safely, with identities, limits and audit.

Cloud, DevOps & Production Operations

Operate cloud workloads (AWS preferred) in a hybrid estate - cloud services plus software installed at dealer sites.
Drive CI/CD, infrastructure automation and release management across that estate.
Use logs, metrics, traces and alerts to keep services healthy, available and resilient.

Requirements

Experience: 8+ years in software engineering, including 3+ managing engineering teams; built or operated APIs, integration platforms or shared services used by other teams or external partners; led modernisation while keeping delivery going; handled customer-impacting incidents.
Technical skills: distributed systems and API design (REST, versioning, gateways); integration patterns (mapping, messaging, events); cloud operations (AWS preferred), containers, CI/CD; API security (OAuth2, mTLS, rate limiting); observability and SLOs.
Languages: fluent English (mandatory; interviews in English); French a plus.
Communication: clear and direct, in writing and in person; negotiates priorities with internal customers.
Interpersonal skills: strong people management and coaching; makes hard trade-offs and says no with reasons; ownership under ambiguity.

Nice to Have

Automotive, DMS/CRM or OEM integrations
Marketplaces or partner ecosystems
AI-enabled products

We Offer

🏡 Hybrid Work: Rotational model, 2 days onsite, three days remote.
💰 Annual Payments: 14 payments per year (12 monthly payments + 1 summer bonus + 1 Christmas bonus in November).
🍽️ Meal Voucher: €10.20 per working day.
🌴 Vacation: 23 vacation days, plus 24th or 31st December off.
🗣️ Language Training: Access to group classes in Spanish, English, or French.
⚕️ Private Medical Insurance: Multicare coverage.
Teambuilding: Join us for memorable afterworks and team activities!

About the Company

Support for people with disabilities. If you need any adjustments during the recruitment process, let us know so we can provide the best possible experience.
Equal opportunities for all: We welcome applications regardless of age, gender, origin, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Join Nextlane and become part of the technological revolution in the automotive industry.

Discover why we are a great place to develop your talent!

Engineering Manager - Platform

Job description