---
title: 'Senior Engineering Manager at Vanilla Technologies'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-engineering-manager-vanilla-technologies-remote-bb724vf7158r'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Senior Engineering Manager at Vanilla Technologies

- **Company:** Vanilla Technologies
- **Location:** Remote
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-08-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/vanilla/fa10fc50-ee12-41ee-a100-95adf166b7a7

## Job description

## ABOUT US

We’re a startup with big ambitions: to make estate planning modern, visual, and intelligent. Vanilla https://www.justvanilla.com/ is the first AI-powered estate advisory platform, built by advisors, planners, and attorneys to transform how wealth is transferred across generations. Our technology unifies scenario modeling, client visualization, and document creation into one seamless, digital experience.

Our team brings together diverse subject matter expertise across estate planning, wealth management, and scaling SaaS startups. We’re distributed across the U.S., with a mix of fully remote and hybrid roles, and we embrace flexibility while staying closely connected. At Vanilla, you’ll join curious builders and problem-solvers who thrive on speed, autonomy, and impact. Here, you won’t just join a company, you’ll help create it. If you’re excited to tackle hard problems, move quickly, and see your work shape both an industry and a growing startup, we’d love to meet you.

## WORKING LOCATION

This role is a remote position, you must be based out of one of the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah or Washington

## JOB SUMMARY

As the Sr. Engineering Manager at Vanilla, you’ll be a true player/coach — a hands-on technical leader who spends a meaningful share of each week in the codebase alongside your team. You’ll write and review code, design and debug systems, and set the technical bar by example, while also leading a small team of engineers, providing direction, and supporting their growth. This is not a hands-off, manager-of-managers role: you’ll pair with engineers, pick up meaningful work in critical or ambiguous areas, and stay close enough to the details to make sharp technical calls. It demands a leader with deep, current technical skills, strong leadership instincts, and a passion for building great software in a fast-paced, start-up environment.

## RESPONSIBILITIES

- Stay hands-on in the code contribute directly to the codebase—writing production code, reviewing PRs, and picking up meaningful work in critical, complex, or ambiguous areas. You lead by doing, not just directing.
- Set the technical bar by example architect and implement scalable solutions, drive strong engineering practices, and raise quality through the work you personally ship and the reviews you give.
- Coach and grow engineers through the work pair, mentor, and unblock your team in the moment. Support their professional development while creating a culture of accountability, autonomy, and learning.
- Lead end-to-end delivery balance speed with technical quality, bring clarity to complexity, and champion scalable design principles across your team’s work.
- Drive technical and product strategy align engineering execution with the company’s broader business goals and customer needs, and help architect solutions that scale both technically and operationally.
- Improve how the team builds implement systems, tools, and processes that improve development velocity, quality, and collaboration—often by prototyping the improvement yourself.
- Serve as a critical cross-functional partner work with product, design, marketing, sales, and support to align roadmaps, unblock execution, and ensure customer-centric outcomes.
- Support pre-sales and customer onboarding help technical stakeholders understand product capabilities, dig into integration details when needed, and ensure feedback from the field informs the roadmap.
- Coordinate external integrations and platform partnerships manage stakeholder expectations and, where it counts, get hands-on to ensure secure, seamless implementation.
- Define and own engineering metrics and KPIs drive continuous improvement in product quality, team performance, and operational efficiency.
- Collaborate with Legal and Security teams uphold compliance, privacy, and regulatory standards across all systems.
- Adopt the vanilla AI SDLC and scale it throughout the team and organization. Continually evolve use of AI for product delivery as capabilities become available.

## QUALIFICATIONS

- 8+ years of professional engineering experience, including recent, current hands-on coding, with 3+ years leading engineers as a hands-on technical lead or player/coach engineering manager.
- Demonstrated ability to operate as a player/coach—comfortable splitting your time between shipping code and leading people, and energized by both.
- A track record of building and scaling complex software systems at high-growth SaaS companies or startups, as a direct contributor and not only as an overseer.
- Deep, current technical skills—you can jump into the codebase, reason about architecture, and debug hard problems yourself.
- Strong operational instincts; you’re process-oriented, data-driven, and focused on systems that enable high-leverage execution.
- Experience influencing product architecture and engineering strategy through a systems-thinking lens.
- Comfort navigating ambiguity and working autonomously in a fast-paced environment.
- Strong communication and leadership skills; you excel at guiding technical discussions and aligning diverse stakeholders.
- Prior experience in pre-sales engineering roles is highly valued.
- Project management experience, particularly in fast-paced or cross-functional environments, is a strong plus.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

The salary range for this role is $180,000 to $210,000. Our compensation packages also include a performance based bonus and equity. Compensation is based on a number of factors and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

## BENEFITS:

- Flexible paid time off policy and 10 company-wide paid holidays
- Parental leave, 6 weeks for all full-time employees and up to 14 weeks for birthing parents
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits coverage for employees and their families
- 401K eligibility after one month of employment
- Free estate planning documents
- Budget for learning & development and home office setup
- Paid parking or transit for hybrid and in office employees

Vanilla Technologies Inc. (dba "Vanilla") provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

Vanilla participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.

## About Vanilla Technologies

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Vanilla is an AI-powered estate planning platform built for financial advisors, RIAs, and wealth management firms to simplify, automate, and scale estate planning across their client base.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series unknown; funded by Venrock, Insight Partners, and others)
- **Headquarters**: United States (fully remote with a hub in unspecified location; team distributed across the US)
- **Founded**: 2019
- **Founders**: Steve Lockshin (also Chairman)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Fintech / Wealthtech / Estate Planning Technology
- **Target customers**: B2B – Financial advisors, RIAs, wealth management firms, and attorneys
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Make estate planning simple” – transforming a complex, outdated process into a modern, visual, and intelligent digital experience.

## Products & Services
- **Vanilla Platform (core SaaS)**: End-to-end estate planning software that includes document review, strategy modeling, plan visualization, and document creation. Enables advisors to manage the entire estate planning lifecycle for clients across wealth levels.
- **V/AI (AI Copilot)**: Built-in AI assistant that extracts estate profiles from uploaded documents, generates contextual summaries, and answers planning questions – all within a secure, compliant environment. AI outputs are clearly marked and editable; no client data used for training.
- **Estate Health Check**: A questionnaire-based tool that quickly identifies planning gaps and opportunities across an advisor’s entire book of business.
- **Scenarios**: Advanced modeling tool for GRATs, SLATs, charitable strategies, and other complex structures – allowing side-by-side comparison and visual outcomes.
- **Document Builder**: Guided workflow for creating wills, trusts, and essential documents directly from the platform.
- **Client Profiles**: Centralized client data and plan summaries.
- **Abstraction Services / Vanilla Attorney Network**: Human review layer provided by Vanilla’s in-house team of former practicing attorneys (180+ years combined experience) for document abstraction, legal review, and complex cases.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Over **$250 billion** in client assets modeled on the platform; trusted by firms including Vanguard, Mariner, and Robinhood.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Venrock, Insight Partners, F. William McNabb III (former CEO of Vanguard), **Michael Jordan** (NBA legend and businessman), Jason Wenk (founder/CEO of Altruist).
- **Growth Signals**: Four consecutive SOC 2 Type II audits with zero findings; enterprise-ready security; first patented AI-driven estate planning platform built specifically for financial advisors; rapidly expanding across the $84.4 trillion wealth transfer market.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Patent-protected technology**: Industry’s first patented estate planning solution built for advisors.
- **Integrated human expertise**: In-house team of former practicing attorneys (180+ years combined) provides a review layer that pure technology cannot replace – a key differentiator in a high-stakes, regulated field.
- **AI-powered but advisor-centric**: V/AI is designed to augment, not replace, advisors. Outputs are editable, and the platform is built from the ground up for the advisor-client relationship.
- **Full-spectrum capability**: Serves clients from foundational plans to billionaire estates on a single platform.
- **Enterprise trust**: Proven security (SOC 2 Type II), adoption by top-tier firms, and a track record of zero findings in audits.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale AI capabilities**: Deepening V/AI features while maintaining compliance and human oversight.
- **Capture the wealth transfer wave**: Targeting the massive intergenerational wealth transfer ($84.4 trillion) with tools that help advisors engage clients and modernize estate planning.
- **Expand partnerships**: Continuing to win enterprise clients (Vanguard, Robinhood) and grow the Vanilla Attorney Network.
- **Product depth**: Enhancing scenario modeling and document builder to cover more complex estate strategies.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & autonomy**: Described as a fast-paced, high-ambiguity startup where “you won’t just join a company, you’ll help create it.” Team members have autonomy to self-direct their workday with less time in meetings.
- **Remote-first / hybrid**: Fully remote roles available for US-based candidates, with a mix of remote and hybrid options. Must be based in one of 19 specified states (AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, KY, ME, MA, MN, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TX, UT, or WA).
- **Team & background**: Colleagues hail from Amazon, Smartsheet, Stripe, Addepar, and other tech leaders, plus deep expertise from wealth management and estate planning.
- **Benefits & perks**: Competitive salary (e.g., Senior PM range $170k–$180k) plus performance bonus and equity. Benefits include: medical/dental/vision, flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, 6 weeks parental leave (up to 14 for birthing parents), 401k after one month, budget for learning & development and home office setup, paid parking/transit for hybrid/in-office employees.
- **Engineering & product focus**: High-impact roles with direct ownership of shipping features. Emphasis on AI, fintech, and solving real-world problems in a highly regulated industry.

## Sources
1. [justvanilla.com](https://www.justvanilla.com/)
2. [justvanilla.com/aboutus](https://www.justvanilla.com/aboutus)
3. [justvanilla.com/careers](https://www.justvanilla.com/careers)
4. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/justvanilla)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/vanilla](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/vanilla)

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