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.

• 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

• 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!