---
title: 'Engineering Manager, Core Product Engineering at BackOps-AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-core-product-engineering-backops-ai-san-francisco-h95knyk3tvwm'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Engineering Manager, Core Product Engineering at BackOps-AI

- **Company:** BackOps-AI
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-09-01
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.gem.com/backops-ai/am9icG9zdDr7HglCW1NhaBtkVMwbbdyd

## Job description

## About BackOps

BackOps AI transforms supply-chain operations with agentic AI that automates complex workflows, freeing teams to focus on what matters most. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, we foster a culture of innovation, ownership, and measurable impact.

## The Role

Core Product Engineering sits at the core of BackOps, building the product that turns complex supply-chain operations into reusable workflow automations. We are seeking an engineering leader to guide a team of product engineers building the systems our customers run their operations on.

This role is for leaders who think in products as much as in systems. This product area does not have settled patterns yet, so a large part of this job is product and design thinking done alongside Product and Design, not execution handed down from a roadmap. You should want to be close to the work: read code, sit in design reviews, and hold a high bar on how the software gets built.

## Your Impact

In this role, you will own the evolution of BackOps core product, making sure it meets the next wave of customer scale, quality, and reliability needs. You will partner with product, design, and customers to deliver software that ships predictably and holds up in production.

- Hire, Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of product engineers.
- Own the evolution of BackOps core product: the reusable workflow automations customers run their operations on, and the product surface end to end.
- Own the software development lifecycle end to end: architecture and design, code review, testing, release, and what happens in production afterward.
- Drive predictable delivery and raise the engineering quality bar. Be accountable for what ships, when it ships, and how well it holds up.
- Partner with Product and Design in a tight, fast loop. Bring your own product opinions, decide quickly, ship, and measure.
- Work directly with customers and design partners. Their operations change constantly, and the product has to change with them.
- Drive how we plan, evaluate, and improve our AI agents, and build the team's fluency in doing it.
- Champion reliability, safety, and performance of the systems running in live customer environments.

## What We're Looking For

- 5+ years managing engineers, on top of a strong hands-on engineering background.
- Deep grounding in software engineering fundamentals: system design, code quality, testing, and release practice. You can go deep with your engineers on a design decision.
- A track record of shipping quality software predictably, and of raising the engineering standard of a team.
- Strong product and design instincts. You can hold your own in a design review and you bring your own opinions about what the product should do.
- Experience building with LLMs or AI agents in production, and a clear view on how to tell whether they are working.
- A genuine AI-first approach to engineering. You use coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex) in your own workflow and you can teach it.
- Comfortable when requirements evolves and the right answer is not known yet.
- Clear written and verbal communication with engineers, designers, customers, and founders.

## Nice to Have

- Depth in evals, agent orchestration, multi-agent architectures, or RAG in production.
- Zero-to-one experience: built a product from an idea to product-market fit.
- Built with design partners, where the customer is in the loop weekly.
- Grown a team through a step change in size, and hired well while doing it.
- Exposure to operationally complex industries (logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, retail).

What Success Looks Like

- Every cross-team initiative has an owner, a definition of done, and a status you can trust.
- Intake has a front door, and unplanned work is measured weekly rather than estimated once a year.
- The org plans and re-plans without it being an event.
- Escalation paths are designed, written down, and used in a real incident.
- Systemic problems get fixed once rather than escalated repeatedly.
- Leadership makes decisions on current information without anyone assembling it by hand.

## Why BackOps

- Own the core product of an AI-native company at the point where it is still being defined.
- See your work land in real supply-chain operations and show up in a customer's week.
- Small team with real autonomy and direct access to founders and customers.
- Backed by exceptional investors and advisors.

Rewards

- Competitive salary and meaningful equity.
- Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
- 401(k) plan, disability insurance, and life insurance.
- Flexible time off.
- Daily meals in the office, and regular team events and offsites.

## About BackOps-AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: BackOps builds an AI-native operating system for supply chain and logistics operations, turning complex manual workflows into structured, always-on execution across systems and teams.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Sean McCarthy (CEO) and Henry Ou (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Supply Chain & Logistics Technology / AI Operations
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise (automotive manufacturers, global retailers, grocery chains, machinery suppliers, and other logistics-heavy industries)
- **Mission statement**: To build the AI-native operating layer for modern operations, turning complex, manual workflows into structured, always-on execution across systems and teams.

## Products & Services
- **AI Process Center**: Captures institutional knowledge by recording how employees complete logistics workflows, identifies inefficiencies, and converts those processes into automated actions. Includes a Workflow Recorder and historical ticket mining.
- **Relay**: An agentic automation engine that runs continuously across communication channels (email, Slack, portals, etc.) to detect issues and resolve them automatically. Capabilities include order management, claims & disputes, shipping & logistics tracking, accounts payable, data & document processing, and customer support triage.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $34M raised
- **Last Round**: $26M Series A (led by Theory Ventures, with participation from Gradient, Construct Capital, and 10VC) — raised in April 2026
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Theory Ventures, Gradient Ventures (Google's AI fund), Construct Capital, 10VC
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Raised $26M Series A just 6 months ago (as of Sept 2026)
  - Customers report 93% faster response times and 100% automatic filing of eligible carrier claims
  - Clients include one of the world's largest automobile manufacturers, a major global retailer, leading grocery chains, and major U.S. machinery suppliers
  - Headcount of 25 employees, actively scaling team

## Competitive Advantages
- **AI-native architecture**: Not a chatbot bolted onto existing workflows, but a purpose-built "operations OS" that learns processes from SOPs and executes across fragmented systems (web portals, carrier APIs, ERPs, email, Slack)
- **Forward-deployed team model**: Works alongside customer operations from day one, mapping processes and tuning decision logic — a hands-on approach that reduces implementation friction
- **Founding team depth**: CEO Sean McCarthy was an early hire at Amazon Shipping (global sales); CTO Henry Ou led applied ML teams at Apple and ByteDance and ran an ERP integration business — a rare blend of operational and technical expertise
- **Full lineage capture**: All decisions and exceptions are logged with complete context, creating a living system of record for how teams actually work

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling the team and accelerating product roadmap to meet growing demand for AI-driven logistics automation
- Expanding the platform's ability to handle more complex, multi-departmental workflows (CS, Ops, Finance, Sales)
- Deepening integrations with legacy systems, carrier portals, and enterprise tools

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Emphasizes a "human + machine" philosophy — building tools that augment operators, not replace them. Described as a place for "operators, engineers, or builders who believe that the future of work is human + machine and not human versus machine."
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Based in San Francisco with two offices; specific remote policy not detailed publicly, but likely hybrid given the forward-deployed team model.
- **Notable perks**: Opportunity to work on a category-defining product in a space ripe for transformation. Small, nimble team (~25 employees) means high impact and ownership. Backed by top-tier investors with deep AI and logistics expertise.
- **Engineering culture**: CTO with strong ML background from Apple and ByteDance suggests a high bar for technical excellence. Work involves cutting-edge AI applied to real-world operational problems.

## Sources
1. [backops.ai](https://www.backops.ai/) — Official product and company description
2. [backops.ai/careers](https://www.backops.ai/careers) — Careers page and mission
3. [backops.ai/about-us](https://www.backops.ai/about-us) — Founding story and team
4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/backops-ai) — Company profile with headcount and founding year
5. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/backops-ai) — Funding data, news, and Expert Collections

## Other roles at BackOps-AI

- [Product Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-backops-ai-san-francisco-1m1bz26j9x55) — San Francisco, CA
- [Engineering Manager, Infrastructure and Security](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-infrastructure-and-security-backops-ai-san-francisco-e4cky54xn1np) — San Francisco, CA
- [Technical Program Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-backops-ai-san-francisco-5t082nnrpj11) — San Francisco, CA
- [Product Security Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/product-security-engineer-backops-ai-san-francisco-5f1syczeyyn6) — San Francisco, CA
- [Founding GTM Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-gtm-recruiter-backops-ai-san-francisco-trwn25fwpbnn) — San Francisco, CA
- [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-backops-ai-los-angeles-6x74mdhyy05s) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-backops-ai-chicago-vkd5te1sf1mq) — Chicago, IL
- [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-backops-ai-new-york-4z4fkmv7pbqj) — New York, NY
- [Founding Finance & Accounting Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-finance-accounting-lead-backops-ai-san-francisco-byv3mcb1cq7t) — San Francisco, CA
- [Founding Technical Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-technical-recruiter-backops-ai-san-francisco-dxm77c6jpmhx) — San Francisco, CA