Engineering Manager, Core Infrastructure

Compa is a venture-backed SaaS startup revolutionizing the future of compensation.

In a dynamic job market with hiring challenges, accountability, and the rise of AI, companies need the best data to stay ahead of industry changes, competition, and costs. Compa has developed the premier real-time compensation data platform, delivering top-tier compensation intelligence to leading enterprise teams.

Compa is a compensation intelligence company built to augment enterprise compensation teams in the era of AI.

Our customers include the world’s biggest companies: NVIDIA, Stripe, DoorDash, TMobile, Moderna, Workday, Ulta, Target, and more.

Locations:

Compa headquarters are located in Irvine, California, with growing sites in Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California. We’re a collaborative, curious, and driven team that values transparency, ownership, and continuous learning and prioritizing in person work where possible.

Location:
While Compa is a remote friendly company, for this role there is a preference for candidates located near one of our offices in Irvine, CA, Denver, CO or Boston, MA

The Role:

Compa is hiring an Engineering Manager to build and lead our first Core Infrastructure Team. This is a rare opportunity to define and scale the infrastructure that powers every layer of our platform—from web app hosting and conventional AI to self-hosted generative models, business intelligence, and secure customer data environments.

This role is perfect for a technically strong player-coach who wants to both build and lead. You’ll own roadmap planning, delivery, and execution of key infra initiatives (including multi-cloud and customer-managed encryption), and partner closely with Compa’s CTO and engineering leads to shape DevOps and scaling strategy.

As the first hire on this team, you’ll establish foundational processes, build the infra hiring loop, and directly impact product velocity, system reliability, and technical excellence across the company.

In this role, you will:

• Build and lead Compa’s first infrastructure team

• Set strategy, roadmap, and success metrics for core infrastructure

• Be a hands-on contributor and technical mentor (including oncall rotation)

• Own major company initiatives like multi-cloud support and data encryption

• Collaborate across engineering, product, and cross-functional leadership to identify opportunities and de-risk scaling challenges

• Manage Compa’s hosting budget and vendor selection for cloud infrastructure

Minimum Qualifications:

• Proven experience as a technical lead or manager in an infrastructure or DevOps-focused team

• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure, hosting, service reliability, and platform scaling

• Ability to contribute to code, perform oncall duties, and review high-quality engineering work

• Strong project management skills with a track record of delivering high-impact infrastructure projects

• Experience building and scaling developer tools, CI/CD, observability, or internal platforms

• Excellent collaboration and communication skills; ability to work cross-functionally with Product, Eng, and XFN leads

• Comfort owning budgeting, vendor evaluation, and managing infrastructure costs

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience leading a team through multi-cloud migrations or encryption key management

• A “player-coach” mindset—able to ship while building the team and processes

• Familiarity with MLOps, AI infrastructure, or tooling for data-intensive systems

• Experience supporting both internal engineering velocity and production system reliability

• Strong mentorship abilities and a passion for developing high-performing engineers

• Experience building infra in a fast-paced startup or high-growth B2B SaaS environment