Engineering Manager (New Products)

Building the AI Infrastructure for Construction

• Construction remains one of the largest real-world systems still operating on fragmented, manual infrastructure.

• Every project in the U.S. moves through permitting and pre-construction workflows spread across ~20,000 jurisdictions, each with inconsistent rules, systems, and levels of digitization.

• This creates one of the largest bottlenecks in the physical economy, delaying housing and infrastructure projects and costing billions in lost time and capital every year.

• PermitFlow is rebuilding this layer from the ground up, using modern software and AI systems to automate permitting end-to-end.

• Permitting is the gate every construction project's data passes through, giving us a route upstream into design, pricing, and feasibility, and downstream into procurement and scheduling, and a foundation to launch new products from.

• We are still early, and the next set of products we build will define how far this category extends beyond permitting.

Role Overview

• We're looking for an Engineering Manager, New Products to lead the engineering team turning our next product bets into shipped, revenue-generating systems.

• This is a builder-leader role. You will own both people leadership and technical execution for products that don't exist yet, moving from hypothesis to pilot to commercial launch, often on a compressed timeline and with an incomplete spec.

• You will report directly to our VP of Engineering and partner closely with our Product Lead, New Products to turn a market bet into an architecture, then into a working system a customer will pay for. Our VP strongly values hands-on technical leadership. The best-fit EMs here are comfortable making fast, defensible architecture calls with limited information, and just as comfortable running a team.

• You will be expected to drive your own roadmap end-to-end from technical scoping and build-vs-buy calls through delivery and customer impact, ensuring what your team ships is fast enough to test a new market cheaply and solid enough to scale if the bet pays off.

What You’ll Do

You will operate across systems, people, and execution at scale:

• Lead and grow an engineering team shipping new product lines from zero to commercial launch, raising the bar for ownership, quality, and execution speed

• Build strong engineering culture through clear expectations, 1:1s, feedback loops, and career development

• Partner with our Product Lead, New Products to translate an unvalidated market hypothesis into a technical architecture that can be built and tested quickly

• Make fast, pragmatic build-vs-buy and scope calls that let the team test a new product cheaply before over-investing in it

• Own technical execution from pilot through commercial launch, including the handoff to a durable, supportable system once a product line earns dedicated investment

• Improve system reliability, observability, and engineering efficiency as a new product moves from pilot to scale

• Play a key role in hiring and developing engineers who are energized by 0-to-1 ambiguity, and future leaders on the team

What We’re Looking For

We’re looking for strong technical leaders who thrive in high-ownership, high-ambiguity environments.

• 5+ years in software engineering, including 1+ year in engineering leadership

• Direct experience shipping a 0-to-1 product or system in a startup or high-growth environment, ideally through to commercial launch

• Strong system design and architecture fundamentals, with the judgment to build for speed of learning first and durability second, then know when to reverse that order

• Ability to lead through ambiguity and turn an incomplete spec into structured execution

• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders

• High standards for engineering quality, reliability, and performance despite compressed timelines

• Deep technical fluency: comfortable engaging with code review, architecture, and tradeoffs

• Bonus: founding engineer or early-stage startup experience where you built the first version of a product with minimal process scaffolding

• Bonus: exposure to complex regulated environments (construction, logistics, government systems, etc.)

Why This Role Matters

This is not a maintenance role - it is a systems-building role at the foundation of a category being created in real time.

PermitFlow sits at the intersection of:

• fragmented real-world regulatory infrastructure

• high-friction physical economy workflows

• emerging AI systems capable of automating end-to-end complexity

The products built here extend PermitFlow beyond permitting into the adjacent workflows construction teams already trust us with.

This role offers rare leverage: your technical calls will decide how fast we can test new markets, and your team's execution will decide which of those bets becomes a durable product line.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary and meaningful equity in a high-growth company

• 401(k) savings plan

• Unlimited PTO and paid family leave

• Home office & equipment stipend

• Daily in-office lunch and dinner provided

• Commuter benefits (pre-tax transit and parking)

If you want to build complex systems connecting software to real-world infrastructure and help define a category from the ground up, we’d love to talk.

Inside PermitFlow: The Team Transforming Construction Permitting