Software Engineering Manager

Overview

About Certara

Certara accelerates the potential of bringing medicines to market and to patients using biosimulation software, technology, and services to transform traditional drug discovery and development. Our clients include more than 2,400 biopharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and regulatory agencies across 70 countries.

Our goal is to enable the life sciences industry’s use of data, modeling, and analytics to make better decisions across the various phases of discovery and drug development. Our software and scientists incorporate modern advances in scientific understanding, drug development experience, data analysis, and AI resulting in significant opportunities to decrease the cost and increase the probability of success for new drug approval and commercialization.

Phoenix Cloud helps PK/PD scientists turn complex study data into publication-ready decisions. We are hiring an Engineering Manager for hands-on people leadership and delivery ownership on a 7–10 person analytics and reporting team. The role is based in Budapest (hybrid); your direct reports are primarily in Europe, and you will work with colleagues across time zones. You will spend meaningful time on people leadership and delivery planning, stay technically credible enough to review work and settle technical debates, and own cross-functional delivery that spans product, QA, and customer-facing implementations. This is not a PM-only or hands-off EM role: you will be in the operational weeds in year one.

At a glance: First-line Engineering Manager · 7–10 direct reports · Reports to Engineering Director· Budapest-based, hybrid · Growth hire to restore sustainable engineering management coverage.

Responsibilities

• People: Develop and lead 7–10 software engineers across Europe, with emphasis on 1:1s, performance feedback, documented growth plans, and input on future hiring needs.
• Delivery: Own release coordination, tier-1 Phoenix Cloud implementation escalations, and cross-functional prioritization with Product Owner(s) and Test Engineer(s) when projects compete for the same resources.
• Platform discipline: Foster technical decision-making on the team (and make final calls when needed), participate in ISO certification activities with quality and compliance partners, and drive portfolio improvements such as AWS cost optimization, internal training, engineering dashboards, and consistency across reporting products.

Qualifications

• Experience leading a team of 5 or more software engineers, including regular 1:1s, clear performance feedback, and documented development plans

• Demonstrated ability to build consensus across departments under competing priorities

• Progressive engineering leadership experience with credible technical judgment: code review, escalation triage, and architectural tradeoffs — comfortable operating in quality-conscious release environments (regulated experience a plus; not only historical IC work)

• Hiring and developing engineers on distributed teams across Europe

• Participating in ISO certification activities alongside quality and compliance partners

• Coordinating release and implementation work across product, QA, and customer-facing delivery

• You kept standards (reviews, feedback, incident follow-through) when delivery pressure was constant

• You have owned release coordination, implementation delivery, or customer escalation paths, not only sprint facilitation

• You are comfortable making technical tradeoffs in regulated life-sciences software where accuracy and validation matter