Engineering Manager, Cloud

About the role

About the Team:

Grindr is an AI-native platform powering how millions of gay people connect globally. With 15M+ monthly users, 130B+ annual messages, and a team of fewer than 200, we move fast, stay lean, and tackle technical problems at a scale few companies ever see.

The Cloud Engineering team is responsible for building and operating the foundational infrastructure that powers Grindr’s global platform. This team owns core cloud services and tooling across AWS and Kubernetes, enabling product and backend teams to ship safely, reliably, and at scale. Reporting to the Head of Cloud Engineering, this role will manage a team of 4–6 individual contributors and play a key role in improving reliability, security, cost efficiency, and developer experience across the organization. The impact of this role is highly visible, directly influencing uptime, incident response, and Grindr’s ability to scale new features globally.

At Grindr, we operate in Grindr Mode. Moderately hardcore day to day, truly hardcore when it counts. It’s about doing great work without burning out. Outcomes over outputs. Smart, driven people who raise your bar, with room to live full lives.

This is a hybrid role based in our Chicago office and will require you to be in person Tuesdays and Thursdays.

About the Job:

- Lead, coach, and grow a team of 4–5 cloud engineers responsible for core infrastructure and platform services.

- Own the execution and delivery of cloud initiatives that improve reliability, scalability, security, and cost efficiency.

- Partner closely with product, backend, mobile, SRE, and security teams to ensure infrastructure enables, rather than blocks, product delivery.

- Contribute to technical direction and architectural decisions across AWS, Kubernetes, and supporting cloud services.

Role Requirements:

- Experience supporting high-traffic, consumer-facing applications.

- Familiarity with operation and performance management of databases and data stores such as PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, and Redis/ElastiCache.

- Exposure to modern CI/CD and infrastructure workflows (e.g., Atlantis, GitOps-style workflows).

- Experience supporting HIPAA- and PCI-compliant environments.

You May Thrive in this Role if You:

- Enjoy leading teams while staying close enough to the technology to guide strong technical decisions.

- Are motivated by improving developer experience and building platforms that help others move faster.

- Are comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment where priorities evolve and tradeoffs are required.

- Take ownership, value accountability, and believe great infrastructure is a force multiplier for product teams.

Benefits and Perks:

- Health, Dental & Vision Full premium coverage for you. Partial coverage for dependents.

- Family Formation Up to $200,000 in fertility and family-building support, covering IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing, and adoption.