Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Cast & Crew is an entertainment technology and services provider that has supported the global entertainment industry for decades. They are seeking a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead and transform a critical product engineering team, focusing on modernizing a legacy platform and improving production stability and practices.
Responsibilities
- Lead the migration from legacy Java/Spring (non-Boot) to Spring Boot, establishing modular service boundaries, externalized configuration, and modern dependency management
- Systematically refactor business logic currently embedded in SQL Server stored procedures into well-tested application-layer code, improving testability, portability, and developer comprehension
- Define and execute the front-end migration from JSP pages to a modern component-based UI stack (React preferred), including API contract design between the new front end and back-end services
- Upgrade the reporting system from its current legacy platform to a modern reporting solution, coordinating with stakeholders to preserve report fidelity while improving maintainability and performance
- Establish architectural guardrails (ADRs, tech radar, code-review standards) that keep modernization coherent across the team
- Triage and prioritize the existing backlog of production defects; create a transparent burn-down plan with clear ownership and SLAs
- Implement a structured incident-response process: severity definitions, on-call rotation, blameless post-mortems, and follow-through on corrective actions
- Drive root-cause analysis for recurring production issues and convert findings into permanent fixes rather than repeated band-aids
- Establish production readiness reviews for all releases to prevent regression and reduce escaped defects
- Stand up a complete software development lifecycle: version-control workflow (branching strategy, PR reviews), automated build/test pipelines, artifact management, environment promotion, and release management
- Introduce or mature CI/CD tooling so that every merge triggers automated unit, integration, and smoke tests before reaching production
- Implement comprehensive monitoring and observability: application metrics, log aggregation, alerting thresholds, dashboards, and distributed tracing where appropriate
- Define and enforce code-quality gates (static analysis, test coverage minimums, security scanning) in the pipeline
- Document runbooks, on-call procedures, and operational playbooks so the team can respond to issues without depending on tribal knowledge
- Manage, coach, and grow a team of software engineers; conduct regular 1:1s, provide timely feedback, and support career development
- Build a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and psychological safety where engineers feel empowered to raise concerns and propose better approaches
- Partner with recruiting to attract strong engineering talent — the modernization story is a selling point, so articulate the vision compellingly
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, QA, Data, and Infrastructure teams to align priorities and dependencies
- Communicate progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly to senior leadership; provide regular, data-backed status on modernization milestones and production health
Skills
- 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, including at least 2 years in a people-management or technical-lead role with direct reports
- Deep hands-on experience with Java and the Spring ecosystem; direct experience migrating from legacy Spring (XML-config, WAR deployments) to Spring Boot
- Strong SQL and relational-database skills, with demonstrated experience refactoring stored-procedure-heavy architectures into application-layer logic
- Production experience with modern front-end frameworks (React strongly preferred; Vue or Angular acceptable) and familiarity with API-first front-end/back-end integration patterns
- Track record of setting up or significantly improving CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and monitoring/observability stacks
- Proven ability to manage competing priorities: simultaneous production firefighting and strategic modernization
- Strong communication skills — comfortable presenting roadmaps and trade-offs to both engineers and senior business stakeholders
- Experience in payroll, financial services, or other regulated/high-accuracy domains where data correctness is non-negotiable
- Familiarity with reporting-platform migrations (e.g., Crystal Reports, SSRS, Jasper, Stimulsoft, or similar) and understanding of pixel-perfect document generation requirements
- Hands-on experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and cloud platforms (AWS or Azure)
- Familiarity with Agile/Scrum at a practical level — not ceremony for ceremony's sake, but effective sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospectives
Benefits
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- PTO
- Health and wellness programs
- Employee discounts
Company Overview
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