Engineering Manager, Distributed Computing Platform

About nTop nTop builds parametric design software for the hardest geometry problems in aerospace, defense, and industrial turbomachinery. Our platform lets engineers define a design as a parametric program — not one aircraft or turbine, but every variant a program might need. The next step is scale: thousands of design variants evaluated in parallel, across cloud, HPC, and on-prem infrastructure, feeding directly into AI-driven optimization workflows. We're building the product that makes that possible. The Role We're looking for an Engineering Manager to build and lead the team responsible for workload orchestration — the infrastructure that lets nTop customers define, launch, monitor, and collect results from large-scale distributed computation jobs. This team will be small by design: senior engineers, AI-native workflows, high individual leverage. We'll grow when the work earns it. One founding engineer is in place; you will hire and lead the rest while contributing to systems spanning containerized headless execution, job scheduling, integration with third-party platforms (HEEDS, ModelCenter, PhysicsX Flux — MDO and simulation workflow platforms our customers already rely on), and deployment across environments from GPU workstations to cloud-scale Kubernetes clusters. You'll partner with a dedicated Product Manager who owns strategy and roadmap for this area. Your [... source excerpt omitted ...] ook is a parameterized nTop program; headless means executing it without a user at the keyboard — more design variations explored, in less time, without a human in the loop. What You'll Do Build the team. Recruit, hire, and develop a small, senior engineering team. Set clear expectations, give direct feedback, and establish practices that reflect nTop's engineering culture and the demands of infrastructure work. Define the technical approach. Own the architecture for headless execution and workload orchestration within the product direction set by the CTO and PM. Drive build vs. integrate vs. partner decisions for the systems your team owns, across workstations, on-prem HP [... source excerpt omitted ...] Provide grounded technical input on feasibility, sequencing, and risk. Push back when plans don't account for real constraints; propose alternatives when they don't. Deliver for customers in hard environments. Our customers are defense contractors, aerospace OEMs, and industrial manufacturers. You'll engage directly with their engineering and IT teams to design systems that work within real constraints — not around them. What Success Looks Like 90 days: You've assessed the technical landscape, aligned on the initial architecture with the CTO, and begun hiring. You've met with at least two or three customer IT or engineering teams firsthand. 12 months: The team is staffed