Team Lead (Engineering Manager)

About Passport:

At Passport, we empower brands to reach their global potential by delivering the #1 international solutions for direct-to-consumer businesses. What sets us apart is our expertise in international shipping—enabling brands like Carpe, OneSkin, Rhode, GORUCK, and Wildflower Cases to scale globally with ease. Our extensive network, in-house team of logistics and ecommerce experts, integrations with Shopify and other ecommerce platforms, and user-friendly portal make us the trusted partner for growth-focused brands looking to expand internationally and create seamless cross-border experiences.

About the role:

As a Team Lead (Engineering manager), you'll lead a team of backend and full-stack engineers working on our distributed API platform and integrations with global e-commerce systems. Your focus will be on improving team performance, aligning technical efforts with business goals, and building scalable, maintainable systems.

This role goes far beyond delivery: you'll help shape how we work. You’ll drive engineering processes, facilitate clear communication of requirements, and work closely with stakeholders to validate business ideas before they turn into features.

What you'll do

• Lead and support a team of engineers, ensuring delivery of reliable and scalable solutions
• Own and improve engineering processes — from planning and estimation to delivery and retrospectives
• Translate high-level business needs into clear technical requirements and priorities
• Collaborate with Product, Design, and Business stakeholders to validate ideas early and avoid costly rework
• Oversee scheduled data-processing systems, logging, and monitoring strategies
• Maintain visibility on progress, risks, and trade-offs, and help the team navigate complexity and uncertainty
• Encourage a culture of documentation, contributing to and improving our Notion-based knowledge base
• Help team members grow through coaching, regular feedback, and career development
• Facilitate effective async collaboration — our team is distributed across 4 time zones, so you'll help establish clear communication practices, well-documented workflows, and support a culture of autonomy and trust
• You're comfortable with hour-long+ conversations in English and able to lead them when needed — some calls may require you to take the lead and drive discussions with international stakeholders

What we're looking for

• 3+ years of hands-on experience as a software engineer, ideally in backend or full-stack roles
• 2+ years of engineering management or team leadership experience
• Skilled in aligning engineering work with product strategy and business outcomes
• Strong ownership mindset with high standards for technical quality and long-term maintainability
• Confident working through ambiguity, managing stakeholder expectations, and clarifying priorities
• Attention to detail in planning, documentation, and process improvements
• Self-driven with a proactive attitude toward continuous improvement
• Experience designing or evolving engineering processes — from sprint planning to incident reviews and team rituals
• Ability to balance delivery speed with long-term maintainability and team health
• Solid experience designing and maintaining backend architectures for distributed, high-load systems, with a focus on reliability in cloud environments (AWS)
• Tech stack: Node.js, NestJS, Express, MySQL, Redis, Elasticsearch.

A sneak peek into our perks & benefits:

- Competitive cash and equity packages

- Annual software stipend

- 100% remote work environment #LI-Remote

- Paid Time Off

- Paid Parental Leave

- Monthly team get-togethers - bring on the Zoom comedians, pop-a-shot contests, and sip ’n paints!

- Quarterly team (virtual) gatherings and annual team offsites

- Learning & Development Fund for upskilling or products to improve your day-to-day work life

- One time remote work stipend to up your WFH game

- Teammates around the world in 8 different time zones!