Engineering Manager Role - AI & Enterprise SaaS Growth in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
A Rare "Player-Coach" Engineering Manager Role
This role is explicitly structured as ~70% management, 30% hands-on coding — a balance that is increasingly in demand but often poorly defined at other companies. For engineering managers who fear losing their technical edge, this is a genuine green flag. You'll stay close to architectural decisions while also growing as a people leader.
Compensation & Market Context: No salary is listed, but Engineering Manager roles at VC-backed Series B/C startups in San Francisco typically range from $180,000–$240,000 base, plus meaningful equity. Fieldguide's backing by Goldman Sachs, Bessemer, and Y Combinator suggests well-funded equity that could be valuable. Verify equity vesting schedules and cliff terms during the interview process.
Skills You'll Develop:
- AI-native engineering leadership — integrating AI tooling into team workflows is an emerging, high-demand skill set.
- Enterprise SaaS product depth in cybersecurity, privacy, and ESG compliance — a growing regulatory-driven market.
- Full-stack technical leadership with React, TypeScript, Postgres, and Hasura — a modern, marketable stack.
Culture & Stage Signals: Fieldguide is an early-to-mid stage startup with strong institutional backing. Expect ownership, pace, and ambiguity alongside meaningful impact. The emphasis on inclusive culture and therapy benefits as a named perk suggests genuine attention to employee wellbeing — a green flag for work-life balance relative to typical startup environments. The main risk: as an EM at a startup, scope and team size could shift rapidly with funding cycles.
About Us:
Fieldguide is establishing a new state of trust for global commerce and capital markets through automating and streamlining the work of assurance and audit practitioners specifically within cybersecurity, privacy, and ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance). Put simply, we build software for the people who enable trust between businesses.
We're based in San Francisco, CA and backed by top investors including Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Bessemer Venture Partners, 8VC, Floodgate, Y Combinator, DNX Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Justin Kan, Elad Gil, and more.
We value diversity — in backgrounds and in experiences. We need people from all backgrounds and walks of life to help build the future of audit and advisory. Fieldguide's team is inclusive, driven, humble and supportive. We are deliberate and self-reflective about the kind of team and culture that we are building, seeking teammates that are not only strong in their own aptitudes but care deeply about supporting each other's growth.
As an early stage start-up employee, you'll have the opportunity to build out the future of business trust. We make audit practitioners' lives easier by eliminating up to 50% of their work and giving them better work-life balance. If you share our values and enthusiasm for building a great culture and product, you will find a home at Fieldguide.
About the Role
We're hiring an Engineering Manager for the Core team at Fieldguide. This team builds and scales core product experiences for Enterprise customers, covering a broad set of work across methodologies, product improvements, and larger platform investments. The team handles both a steady stream of smaller product requests and longer-term strategic initiatives, with current focus areas including versioning, design system work, NPS improvement, and scaling audit capabilities into internal audit. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can balance people management with technical depth.
What You'll Do
- Lead a full-stack engineering team focused on core Enterprise product development
- Manage and support engineers while helping the team execute across multiple parallel workstreams
- Stay close to the code and contribute to architectural decisions
- Help the team operate effectively in a remote-first environment
- Drive strong engineering execution across both fast-turn product requests and multi-quarter initiatives
- Bring an AI-native mindset and help the team adopt effective, safe ways of using AI in engineering workflows
Who You Are
- An experienced engineering leader who is excited to be both a manager and a technical contributor
- Comfortable in a role that is roughly 70% management and 30% hands-on coding
- Able to code, guide implementation, and weigh in on architectural decisions
- Strong in modern full-stack development, especially with React, TypeScript, Postgres, and Hasura
- Effective in environments with many concurrent priorities and cross-functional requests
- Strong coach and operator who can support a high-functioning, established team
- Energized by building with AI tools and helping teams develop practical processes for using AI well
Bonus Points
- Familiarity with audit, compliance, or adjacent workflow-heavy product domains
- Experience introducing team-level best practices for AI-assisted development
- Experience working effectively on a distributed, remote-first team
More about Fieldguide:
Fieldguide is a values-based company. Our values are:
- Fearless — Inspire & break down seemingly impossible walls.
- Fast — Launch fast with excellence, iterate to perfection.
- Lovable — Deliver happiness & 11 star experiences.
- Owners — Execute & run the business with ownership.
- Win-win — Create mutual value & earn trust for life.
- Inclusive — Scale the best ideas with inclusive teams.
Some of our benefits include:
- Competitive compensation packages with meaningful ownership
- Flexible PTO
- 401k
- Wellness benefits, including a bundle of free therapy sessions
- Technology & Work from Home reimbursement
- Flexible work schedules
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this Engineering Manager role fully remote?
How much coding is expected in this Engineering Manager role?
What tech stack does the Core team use at Fieldguide?
What are the compensation and equity details for this role?
Do I need experience in audit or compliance to apply?
