Engineering Manager, Product Engineering

Software engineering is changing faster than at any point in our careers. At IPRally, agents now write most of our code. That has made the work harder, not easier. Our engineers need to understand more of the system and more of the customer, and they make more decisions on their own. Some of the old satisfactions of the craft are fading, and new ones are still forming.

We're looking for an Engineering Manager who wants to lead a team through that change and make it a good place to do the best work of their careers.

IPRally builds AI tools for understanding patents and technical knowledge. The product is a mix of AI workflows and our own search models. Our Product Engineering team has seven engineers today and will grow to around ten.

The culture we're building

• Engineers are trusted to decide. They get context and ownership, not tickets. When a strong team works well, its manager rarely needs to step in.
• Engineering is product-, design- and customer-led. Engineers understand why we build something, not only how, and work as peers with product and design.
• The work stays inspiring. Agents take over more of the typing. We want the thinking, the judgement and the craft that remain to feel worth doing.
• People can trust the company. We're honest about what is changing and why, so people can feel safe even while the work changes under them.

The job: make that culture stronger

The core of the role is people. You're the manager of our product engineers. You help each of them grow, whether towards understanding the whole system or towards understanding users and the product. You give real feedback, coach rather than prescribe, hire, and have the hard conversations when they're needed. You help the team see what matters most now and when to move on, without micromanaging.

Our engineers are different people. Some want a manager close by, someone who pushes back on their behalf and helps them decide what's enough. Others do their best work when left alone. Your job is to know each of them well enough to tell the difference, and to support each one in the way that actually helps them.

You also bring experience of how good SaaS product development works. Help our engineers, and the teams around them, work in a product-, design- and customer-led way.

Beyond that core, the role is yours to shape. IPRally needs people who connect teams: product, design, commercial, and engineering teams. How far you take that, and where, is up to you.

How we'll work with you

We won't hand you a playbook. We expect you to come with your own view of how to lead an engineering team through this, and we'll trust you to run it your way. You won't need to check with the CTO every day, and the engineers won't need to check with you every day. That is the point.

Who we're looking for

• You've managed software engineers, and you can point to people and teams that became stronger under you.
• You come from a strong engineering background and have been hands-on recently enough to talk credibly about how agents change the work.
• You've worked in SaaS product development and have seen product-led teams work well.
• You have a point of view on agentic development. You don't need all the answers.
• You'd rather let agents handle the routine parts of management than add process.
• You want to manage. For you it's the job you choose, not a step away from engineering.
• You prefer a small company: direct communication, low ego, little process.
• You're based in Helsinki, close to the team, product and the CTO.

You don't need experience with patents or our stack (Clojure, ClojureScript, Python, Postgres, Temporal, GCP).

How to apply

Along with your CV, write half a page answering this question: How would you help a team of seven experienced product engineers stay inspired and keep growing as agents take over more of the coding? There's no right answer. We want to see how you think.

Salary €6,500–7,500/month, with equity on top. The role reports to Antti Tarvainen, CTO.