Senior Engineering Manager, Builder Tools

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 As a Senior Engineering Manager on the Builder Tools team, you will lead a team that empowers a company of builders by delivering a frictionless, standardized ecosystem of core engineering and AI tools. You’ll operate like internal Forward Deployed Engineers—partnering directly with teams across the company to accelerate safe, effective AI adoption—while also being an early adopter of our own AI products to create a tight feedback loop with product leadership. You will balance speed with reliability: removing invisible barriers that break flow, building paved paths, and prioritizing measurable business impact. Scope Responsibilities Set direction for AI-assisted development, end-to-end: Define the engineering-wide approach for safe, effective AI-assisted workflows (tooling standards, rollout strategy, and adoption). Build frictionless paved paths: Identify and remove sources of friction in developer workflows; deliver a small set of deeply reliable, well-supported paved roads rather than many bespoke bypasses. Internal AI platform strategy (build vs. buy): Own strategy and execution for internal agent runtimes and developer-facing AI systems (authoring, review, and automation workflows), including vendor evaluation and integrations. Governance, cost, and measurement: Drive governance and cost management for AI tooling (usage measurement, guardrails, optimization) using clear metrics and frameworks (e.g., DORA/SPACE) to translate improvements into business outcomes. What You’ll Bring Leadership Execution A strong bias toward action, curiosity, and focus on impact. Experience leading teams focused on developer productivity, DevEx, internal platforms, or engineering tooling. Track record of driving adoption of new workflows and platforms across an engineering organization. Ability to operate across boundaries and influence without direct ownership; comfort acting as an internal forward-deployed partner. Strong coaching and feedback skills, creating an environment where engineers can grow and ship high-quality systems. AI Tooling Experience Experience evaluating and deploying AI coding tools, developer assistants, and/or LLM-based workflows and agents. Intuition for when to adopt vs. build, and how to standardize without blocking innovation. Technical Background Strong software engineering background (backend, platform, or developer tools). Familiarity with modern developer workflows and the systems that support them. Ability to engage deeply in technical discussions around system design, safety guardrails, operational readiness, and tradeoffs. Product Organizational Thinking Ability to translate ambiguous needs into clear guidance and systems. Strong empathy for builders and their workflows (including non-traditional developers). Experience prioritizing and communicating based on measurable impact, not just qualitative feedback. Nice to Haves Experience building measurement systems for tooling outcomes (adoption, reliability, cycle time, cost-to-serve, AI spend). Compensation The estimated pay range for this role is $268,000 - $305,000 depending on experience and location. Th ... (truncated, view full listing at source)