Job description

OVERVIEW You will lead Tonal's Experiences team. Experiences own member happiness: the incremental improvements and new features that make existing subscribers get more out of Tonal and stay. The team works across the trainer, the mobile app, and the backend behind them, with Product, Design, Data Science and Content as close partners. We need someone who can take ownership quickly, keep a strong team shipping, and raise the bar on how we build. Judgment about what to build, what to simplify, and what to stop matters as much as throughput. WHAT YOU WILL DO - Lead a team of six engineers directly: set direction, run performance reviews, coach directly, and give hard feedback early rather than letting problems compound. - Own delivery of the member experience roadmap with Product, Design, Data Science and Content. Make sure the team ships predictably and that what ships is good. - Drive technical quality on the codebase: reliability, performance, test coverage, and release health. Decide where to invest in paying down debt versus shipping faster. - Partner with other teams so your team gets fast feedback on their work and spends less time on coordination. - Hire and grow the team. Define what good looks like at each level, run a fair and calibrated loop, and build a bench of engineers who can lead. - Stay close to the work. You should be able to read a design doc critically, review a risky change, and understand the tradeoffs the team is making. WHO YOU ARE - You have managed software engineers directly for several years, including hiring, performance management, and technical growth. - You have shipped consumer-facing product experiences, on mobile, embedded devices, or web, and you understand what makes them feel fast and reliable to a user. - You have a strong engineering background and have gone deep in at least one area. You can still read and reason about code and architecture. - You communicate clearly with Product, Design, Data Science and executives, you’ve learned how to get to ‘yes’ without overcommitting the team. - You can hold a direct, respectful conversation with someone who is underperforming, framed around the opportunity ahead of them. - You use AI-assisted engineering tools yourself and can tell when their output is good and when it is not. EXTRA CREDIT - Experience with Android, Kotlin, Flutter, or Swift, or with software that ships alongside a physical product. - Experience leading a team through a platform or release-process modernization. - Background in connected fitness, consumer hardware, or digital health. - Experience managing distributed or contract engineers. At Tonal, we believe that the unique and varied lived experiences of our teammates contribute to our overall strength. We don’t just appreciate differences, we celebrate them, and we always seek people that represent a wide variety of backgrounds. We’re dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team and designing employee experiences that contribute to your growth as much as you do to ours. If your experience aligns with what we’re looking for (even if you don’t check every single box), send us your application. We would love to hear from you! Tonal is committed to meeting the diverse needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner that is consistent with the principles of independence, dignity, integration, and equality of opportunity. Should you have any accommodation requests, please reach out to us via our confidential email, accessibility@tonal.com. All requests will be addressed and responded to in accordance with Tonal’s Accessibility Policy and local legislation.

Requirements

Must-haves

We need someone who can take ownership quickly, keep a strong team shipping, and raise the bar on how we build. Judgment about what to build, what to simplify, and what to stop matters as much as throughput.
Lead a team of six engineers directly: set direction, run performance reviews, coach directly, and give hard feedback early rather than letting problems compound.
Own delivery of the member experience roadmap with Product, Design, Data Science and Content. Make sure the team ships predictably and that what ships is good.
Drive technical quality on the codebase: reliability, performance, test coverage, and release health. Decide where to invest in paying down debt versus shipping faster.
Partner with other teams so your team gets fast feedback on their work and spends less time on coordination.
Hire and grow the team. Define what good looks like at each level, run a fair and calibrated loop, and build a bench of engineers who can lead.
Stay close to the work. You should be able to read a design doc critically, review a risky change, and understand the tradeoffs the team is making.
You have managed software engineers directly for several years, including hiring, performance management, and technical growth.
You have shipped consumer-facing product experiences, on mobile, embedded devices, or web, and you understand what makes them feel fast and reliable to a user.
You have a strong engineering background and have gone deep in at least one area. You can still read and reason about code and architecture.
You communicate clearly with Product, Design, Data Science and executives, you’ve learned how to get to ‘yes’ without overcommitting the team.
You can hold a direct, respectful conversation with someone who is underperforming, framed around the opportunity ahead of them.
You use AI-assisted engineering tools yourself and can tell when their output is good and when it is not.

Nice-to-haves

Experience with Android, Kotlin, Flutter, or Swift, or with software that ships alongside a physical product.
Experience leading a team through a platform or release-process modernization.
Background in connected fitness, consumer hardware, or digital health.
Experience managing distributed or contract engineers.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

aikotlinswiftaccessibility

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick