Engineering Manager

First Help Financial (FHF) is a fast-growing and culturally diverse company in the U.S. We provide auto loans to the underserved and care for our customers and partners with exceptional service. Through flexible financing options and tri-lingual support, we offer consumers an easier way to finance their first car. We lend to and support our portfolio which has consistently grown 30%+ each year over the last nine years.

Here you will find hard-working colleagues who come from over 20 countries. We hold ourselves to the highest standards of professionalism but also enjoy our work. Our culture and benefits are geared towards making you successful in life and comfortable at work.

Your Title: Engineering Manager.

Your Location: Hybrid/Brazil HQ address - Nações Unidas São Paulo - SP (required to go to the office two days a week).

You Report To: Vice President, Engineering.

Your compensation: A starting salary of $30,000 BRL or more, depending upon experience.

Learn more about our awesome Engineering team.

About the Opportunity:

First Help Financial, recently voted as a "Great Place to Work" for the fifth year in a row is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our highly skilled and innovative team. First Help Financial is embarking on a new growth phase involving multiple game-changing projects.

What you will do:

Your responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Lead and manage a team of software engineers, fostering a culture of excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.

• Oversee the entire project lifecycle — from architecture and design through deployment and post-release support.

• Ensure the delivery of high-quality, secure, and observable systems that align with business goals and technical standards.

• Provide hands-on technical guidance: review pull requests, analyze architecture decisions, identify root causes of production issues, and drive resolution plans.

• Collaborate with Product Owners to align engineering efforts with the product roadmap, define technical priorities, and scope initiatives effectively.

• Act as a force multiplier by developing the skills of your engineers through mentorship, coaching, and structured feedback.

• Champion best practices in software engineering, with emphasis on observability (e.g., Datadog, New Relic), security (e.g., OWASP Top 10), and performance.

• Drive a culture of metrics and accountability: track team health through velocity, cycle time, throughput, and DORA metrics.

• Support recruiting efforts and build a world-class engineering team.

What you bring:

• 10+ years of experience in software development, with a strong backend engineering background.

• 3+ years of experience leading software engineering teams

• Proven experience with Java in production environments.

• Experience with AWS cloud services and serverless architectures.

• Familiarity with observability stacks such as Datadog or New Relic.

• Solid understanding of application security principles and mitigation strategies (e.g., OWASP Top 10).

• Experience supporting and troubleshooting production systems, with a mindset for root-cause analysis and reliability.

• Experience working in agile teams and deep understanding of Scrum and delivery metrics (velocity, cycle time, DORA, etc.).

• Hands-on mindset: doesn't need to code daily but must be able to dive into PRs, architectural diagrams, incidents, and technical roadblocks.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience influencing technical direction across multiple teams.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field required.

FHF Benefits:

• Great Perks –social activities, monthly lunches, and a robust employee recognition and talent development program to enhance your career with us.
• Culture - We are believers in maintaining a healthy work-life balance. While we work hard and care deeply about our customers and partners, we want you to have room for your family, friends, and yourself.
• Growth - Company growth provides unprecedented career growth. FHF's extraordinary year over year growth in revenue and new markets provides an opportunity for you to establish and develop your career growth. We engage each employee to build a career plan that benefits everyone, and we have a proven record of investing in you.

Diversity and Inclusion

FHF is committed to building a culture that respects and embraces all walks of life, inclusive of all genders, race, culture, age, sexual orientation, and other identities. We will make accommodations when interviewing anyone with special needs.