Software Development Manager

America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) is seeking a Software Development Manager to lead a high-performing engineering team and drive the execution of our technical vision. This is a critical leadership role focused on managing the people, processes, and technology that power our website, app, and digital subscription platforms.

The successful candidate will be a player-coach: a seasoned engineer who can still dive into the code, but whose primary passion is mentoring developers, optimizing delivery workflows, and ensuring technical excellence across the department.

This role reports to the VP, Engineering.

Core Responsibilities

Team Leadership & People Management:

• Mentorship & Growth: Manage a team of engineers, providing regular feedback, career coaching, and performance reviews to foster a culture of continuous learning
• Resource Planning: Manage sprint allocations and technical debt, ensuring the team is balanced between delivering new features and maintaining system health
• Recruitment: Lead hiring efforts to scale the engineering team with top-tier talent that aligns with ATK’s values

Technical Strategy & Delivery:

• Hands-on Leadership: Maintain strong technical fluency through architectural design, high-impact code reviews, and selective hands-on contributions. This role prioritizes technical judgment, system design, and team enablement with as much as 30-40% of time spent making individual coding contributions.You’ll lead a team without having to give up coding.
• Process Excellence: Refine day to day workflows and your teams standard operating procedures to improve team effectiveness and deployment frequency
• Architectural Oversight: Partner with stakeholders to ensure our architecture (Node.js, React, AWS) is scalable, secure, and aligned with long-term business goals
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Product Managers and Designers to translate business requirements into actionable technical roadmaps

Operational Excellence:

• Performance & Reliability: Own the uptime and performance of your team’s digital platforms. Lead incident responses and post-mortem analyses

Skills and Experience Required

Leadership & Execution:

• Management Experience: 2+ years of experience directly managing engineering teams, with a proven track record of developing talent
• Technical Depth: 8+ years of professional software development experience, with expert-level proficiency in Node.js and React. (Java experience is a plus but not required)
• Communication: Exceptional ability to bridge the gap between technical implementation and business strategy for non-technical stakeholders

Technical Proficiency:

• Full-Stack Expertise: Deep understanding of modern web architectures, API design, and distributed systems
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Strong experience with AWS services, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and CI/CD automation
• Problem Solving: A pragmatic approach to technical trade-offs

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience
• Experience leading teams in high-traffic, customer-facing E-commerce or Media environments

Location: This role is based in our Boston, MA headquarters (Seaport District) or is open to qualified remote applicants.

Salary Range: $160,000 to $180,000

The range provided is based on what we reasonably expect to pay for this job as of the time of posting. The actual salary offered will be determined based on multiple factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s relevant experience, job-related knowledge, skills, geographical location, and other job-related factors permitted by law.

Why You’ll Love Working in this Role

• Build products used by millions of passionate home cooks
• Work on a modern, evolving tech stack with real-world scale and complexity
• Have meaningful influence on technical decisions without people-management overhead
• Collaborate with thoughtful, mission-driven teammates across engineering, product, data, and marketing
• Join a company that values experimentation, learning, and craftsmanship

About America's Test Kitchen

The mission of America's Test Kitchen (ATK) is to empower and inspire confidence, community, and creativity in the kitchen. Founded in 1992, the company is the leading multimedia cooking resource serving millions of fans with TV shows (America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Country, and America's Test Kitchen: The Next Generation), a magazine (Cook's Illustrated), cookbooks, a podcast (Proof), FAST channels, short-form video series, and the ATK Essential Membership for digital content. Based in a state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot test kitchen in Boston's Seaport District, ATK has earned the trust of home cooks and culinary experts alike thanks to its one-of-a-kind processes and best-in-class techniques. Fifty full-time (admittedly very meticulous) test cooks, editors, and product testers spend their days tweaking every variable to find the very best recipes, equipment, ingredients, and techniques. Learn more at https://www.americastestkitchen.com/.

Why America's Test Kitchen:

We're passionate about cooking, and about creating the best place to work. We're small enough for your ideas to make a big impact, and large enough to offer you opportunities to grow professionally at any stage of your career. We want you to take risks and make mistakes — that's how innovation happens in our test kitchen, in our offices, and in life.

We at America's Test Kitchen believe food media can be a powerful force for social change. We are passionate about building an inclusive workforce that represents many different cultures, backgrounds, abilities, identities, and perspectives.

We welcome your application.