Senior Engineering Manager, Release Engineering

About Us

Temporal is an open source programming model that can simplify code, make applications more reliable, and help developers focus on the important things like delivering features faster. We are on a mission to be the reliable foundation of every developer’s toolbox, and are building the team that will make that happen.   Our values guide us —they are present in how we show up, make decisions, and work together to make an impact. We’re curious, driven, collaborative, genuine and humble.   Temporal is growing and we are looking for those who share our values, challenge 'standard' thinking, and want to influence our future. If you have a passion for improving the developer experience, building world-class open-source software and communities, and want to be a part of our amazing team, we'd love to hear from you!

Summary

We’re seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead Temporal’s Release Engineering team—the group responsible for how we build, qualify, and ship Temporal software. This team’s mission is to deliver predictable, fully automated, and production-grade releases that embody our value of being Reliable as Gravity. You’ll guide a team of engineers focused on automating the entire release lifecycle using Temporal itself, driving toward a vision of hands-free, scheduled releases. This role combines technical leadership, operational excellence, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure every release is safe, efficient, and reliable at scale.

What You’ll Do

Lead & Empower

• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of release engineers responsible for the systems that power Temporal’s release and deployment processes.
• Set clear goals, define success metrics, and foster a culture of accountability, reliability, and continuous learning.
• Provide technical guidance and architectural direction while empowering engineers to take ownership of key initiatives.
  
  

Deliver & Improve

• Oversee the design and implementation of automation that orchestrates every step of the release process using Temporal.
• Drive consistency, safety, and reliability across build systems, CI/CD pipelines, and release workflows.
• Champion release quality and operational excellence — reducing friction, human intervention, and production risk.
  
  

Collaborate & Align

• Partner closely with teams across Infrastructure, Cloud, and Product Engineering to improve release readiness and velocity.
• Work with leadership to shape the roadmap for Temporal’s internal delivery systems and automation strategy.
• Communicate clearly across functions to ensure transparency, alignment, and trust in release operations.
  
  

Own & Evolve

• Take ownership of the team’s technical and operational outcomes.
• Continuously refine processes and tooling to improve efficiency, observability, and reliability.
• Build and maintain documentation, standards, and reusable frameworks that scale with the company.
  
  

What You’ll Bring

• Proven experience managing or leading software engineering teams, ideally in infrastructure, platform, or release engineering domains.
• Strong technical background in build, release, and deployment systems at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to balance strategic direction with hands-on technical involvement.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills across cross-functional teams.
• Deep sense of ownership and commitment to engineering excellence.
  
  

Skills & Technologies

• Experience developing or managing distributed systems and large-scale infrastructure.
• Familiarity with CI/CD, build pipelines, and release automation best practices.
• Strong understanding of Kubernetes, containerized deployments, and cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or similar).
• Programming experience in Go or another modern language.
• Experience with Temporal or other workflow orchestration systems (strong plus).
• Solid grasp of systems reliability, networking, and operational automation.

Compensation

• The estimated pay range for this role is $240,000 - $275,000 depending location and experience.
• Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Temporal's equity plan.

Compensation ranges reflect salary and commission compensation (when applicable) across several geographic markets. Employment