Senior Engineering Manager, Infrastructure

MZLA Technologies Corporation (MZLA) is a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation and home to Thunderbird, our flagship open-source email and productivity platform empowering more than 20 million people around the world. While part of the Mozilla portfolio of companies, MZLA operates independently in both identity and organizational structure from the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation.

Everything we build at MZLA is open source, developed transparently and in collaboration with a global community of contributors. This open approach shapes not only our products but also how we work: collaboratively, inclusively, and with a shared commitment to building technology that puts users first. We believe privacy and productivity should coexist, and that people deserve powerful digital tools without surrendering control of their data.

MZLA is a small but growing team of 50+ people distributed across seven countries. As we evolve Thunderbird from a single application into a suite of privacy-respecting productivity tools, we’re introducing new products and services that remain independent of big tech ecosystems. Our unique revenue model combines community donations that keep Thunderbird freely available with subscriptions for new cloud-based services, allowing us to grow and innovate while remaining independent and true to our values.

To learn more, visit www.thunderbird.net

The Opportunity:

MZLA Technologies is seeking a hands-on Senior Engineering Manager to lead the strategy and operations behind the systems that power Thunderbird and MZLA’s global business. You’ll guide a small, distributed team in building and maintaining scalable, secure, and reliable infrastructure supporting both product development and business operations.

As MZLA releases Thunderbird Pro, you’ll play a key role in bringing infrastructure for a new SaaS product across the finish line and helping us scale from our first customers to tens of thousands. You’ll help establish practices that keep our systems resilient against outages and attacks, while shaping how the organization approaches reliability and operational maturity as we grow.

Beyond product delivery, this role is responsible for infrastructure that supports the entire organization, including internal platforms and tools used by engineering, marketing, finance, people operations, analytics, and community teams. Your work will remove friction across the company and ensure that both product and business systems are reliable, secure, and built to scale.

This role blends technical depth with strategic leadership, designing cloud environments, improving automation and CI/CD processes, and ensuring system performance and compliance across all platforms. The ideal candidate thrives in a collaborative environment, balancing hands-on technical work with long-term planning and mentorship.

What You’ll Do:

• Design and evolve infrastructure systems to ensure scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency.
• Lead and mentor a distributed infrastructure team, fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture.
• Oversee all cloud environments supporting MZLA’s products and business systems.
• Drive automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, and CI/CD best practices.
• Set and track operational and service level metrics that help teams understand performance and cost patterns.
• Work with community contributors to strengthen our infrastructure and keep systems adaptable. 
• Ensure security, observability, and reliability across production and business systems.
• Lead incident management, including on-call coordination, root-cause analysis, and post-incident review.
• Collaborate across teams to align infrastructure decisions with product, compliance, and operational needs.
• Manage infrastructure budgets, vendor relationships, and scaling plans to support organizational growth.

What You Bring:

• 15+ years of experience in infrastructure, DevOps, or SRE roles, including 4+ years in leadership.
• Expertise in multi-cloud environments and automation (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, Ansible, Kubernetes).
• Proven ability to balance hands-on engineering with team leadership and strategic planning.
• Strong understanding of cloud security, data protection, and reliability best practices.
• Ability to plan and manage budgets along with skill in cloud cost stewardship.
• Experience working with privacy and compliance expectations for cloud hosted systems.
• Excellent communicator comfortable working across distributed global teams.
• Passion for open-source principles and collaborative problem-solving.

Bonus Points for:

• Previous experience maintaining an open-source project, or regular participation in an open-source community.

Work Environment:

You’ll work with our passionate staff and open-source community members from all over the globe to support the mission and objectives of MZLA Technologies Corporation. 

This is a remote full-time position. Strong communication and documentation skills are essential for effective collaboration across time zones and disciplines.

Attention Applicants:

Our team will be observing a scheduled company shutdown from mid-December through early January. Applications will be accepted during this period, but review and responses, including interview scheduling, will resume in January. Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to reconnecting in the new year!

What You’ll get:

We benchmark our base salaries to local markets and target the 60th percentile of the peer market. The salary ranges for this role are:

• US: $160,000 - $195,000 USD

We may consider candidates with strong skills but less than the required experience. Title, level and compensation will be determined based on qualifications and experience.

In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your whole self, outlined below. 

Work & Career

• Fully remote work & schedule flexibility
• Latest Laptop 
• Monthly Remote Work Stipend
• Annual Professional Development Stipend
• Access to Udemy Learning Platform
• Industry Conferences
• Company All Hands

Rest & Play

• 24 days PTO per year (prorated) 
• Your Birthday
• Year-end Company Shutdown
• 9 Wellbeing Days
• Public Holidays
• Other Paid Leave
• Quarterly Wellbeing Stipend for Personal / Family Activities

Health & Family

• 401(k) Contributions
• Health, Dental, & Vision Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Employee Assistance Program 
• Paid Parental Leave
• Paid Sick Days 

Work Eligibility:

Applicants must reside in and have permanent work authorization for the country location(s) specified in the posting. We are unable to consider applicants outside of these markets at this time. And, we do not provide visa sponsorship.

How to Apply:

Please apply directly through our career page. We carefully review every cover letter and screening question, so take the time to answer each fully. We also value authenticity. We want to hear your perspective, not a bot’s. It's fine to use AI to polish your writing, but not to write your answers. Candidates who submit unoriginal AI generated answers will be disqualified from further screening. 

MZLA Technologies Corporation (MZLA) Commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion

MZLA believes in the value of diverse creative practices and forms of knowledge, and knows diversity, equity and inclusion are crucial to and enrich the company’s core mission. We encourage applications from everyone, including members of all equity-seeking communities, such as (but not limited to) women, racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, persons of all sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions.

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race (including hairstyle and texture), religion (including religious grooming and dress practices), gender, gender identity, gender expression, color, national origin, pregnancy, ancestry, domestic partner status, disability, sexual orientation, age, genetic predisposition, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, military or veteran status, or any other basis covered by applicable laws. Mozilla will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics or any other unlawful behavior, conduct, or purpose. 

We will ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, as appropriate. Please contact us at [email protected] to request accommodation.

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