Job description
PWI is seeking a Software Applications Manager to lead a small team responsible for custom applications and integrations that support our business. This is primarily a management and technical-leadership role, not a full-time development position. The manager remains handson and is expected to write production code regularly while contributing through architecture, technical review, complex debugging, prototypes, and small projects.
The Software Applications Manager turns incomplete business requests into clear project scopes, realistic plans, sound application architecture, and completed releases. The manager leads developers day to day, reviews pull requests, protects engineering quality, and confirms that work is properly tested and ready for users.
The right candidate combines strong leadership and follow-through with the technical depth to coach developers, evaluate application architecture, identify weak code, and assist with difficult implementation work when needed. The goal is steady delivery and a team that keeps getting stronger - momentum on the work, and real room for developers to grow through expanding ownership and responsibility.
Supervisory responsibilities
- Manage a small full-stack applications engineering team.
- Set development schedules against approved priorities and realistic team capacity.
- Assign and coordinate day-to-day development tasks as priorities and project needs shift.
- Review completed work, provide direct technical feedback, and enforce team development standards.
- Complete performance reviews, help evaluate candidates, and address performance or behavioral concerns.
- Build developer independence through clear direction, intentional delegation, ongoing education, and regular one-on-one coaching.
Responsibilities
- Turn incomplete requirements into buildable project scopes. Meet with users, stakeholders, domain leads, and subject-matter experts to identify missing information, clarify business rules, document decisions, and distinguish the underlying need from a requested solution.
- Plan and coordinate reliable delivery. Estimate projects, plan sprints around the team's actual capacity, assign work, track commitments, remove blockers, set realistic deadlines, and communicate risks or schedule changes early.
- Control scope without lowering quality. Identify scope drift before it threatens the schedule. When necessary, stage, simplify, or defer features rather than weakening architecture, testing, maintainability, or release safety.
- Own application architecture within approved standards. Make sound project-level architecture decisions, identify architectural drift, enforce engineering standards, and assist in defining technical standards.
- Review completed work as a finished product. Confirm that work meets approved requirements, follows approved architecture, is maintainable and usable, and has been appropriately tested and made ready for release.
- Coach through technical review. Explain why issues matter, give clear guidance for correcting them, and treat review as a standing channel for sharpening developer skill and judgment.
- Create room for developers to grow. Match people to work that stretches them, expand ownership as they are ready for it, and support ongoing education.
- Manage routine product updates. Set release cadence and coordinate deployments so updates arrive fully reviewed, tested, and grouped to limit change burden on end users.
- Maintain the health of published applications. Triage and coordinate resolution of bugs and functional gaps. Plan technical-debt work, dependency and framework updates, and security corrections.
- Contribute technically as needed to unblock the team. Plan architecture, review complex logic, assist with debugging, prototype solutions, complete small projects, and write production code when direct implementation is the best use of the manager's time.
- Identify opportunities for automation and agentic tooling. Find business workflows that would materially benefit from automation, then scope and coordinate the work that delivers it.
- Oversee Al-assisted development practices. Establish responsible use patterns, verify Al-generated work, and guide the team in applying agentic tools and new technologies to practical development and business needs.
Application Environment
The manager leads custom solutions built end to end, including:
- Internal web applications
- Desktop applications
- Internal and vendor integrations
Current technologies include Flutter, Node.js, React, and .NET.
Known upcoming work includes:
- A customer-facing web portal for PWl's proprietary design automation platform
- ERP integrations and customization
- Agentic workflows incorporated into existing applications
- An internal MCP server that allows teams to connect systems and workflows to Al
Required qualifications
Leadership and delivery
- Prior leadership experience - formal management, team or technical leadership, project coordination, volunteer or community leadership, or comparable work.
- Ability to track commitments, maintain momentum, resolve blockers, and carry important work through to reliable completion with minimal oversight.
- Ability to recognize when work is sufficiently complete, without letting perfectionism or over- engineering delay delivery.
- Ability to plan around actual team capacity, manage competing work, set realistic deadlines, control scope, and communicate changes early.
- Ability to coach developers, delegate meaningful ownership, and provide direct feedback.
- Ability to exercise sound judgment in decision-making: move quickly on low-risk decisions and carefully evaluate those with significant or difficult-to-reverse consequences.
Requirements and Communication
- Ability to turn unclear or incomplete technical requests into actionable development work that meets business expectations.
- Ability to meet directly with users, stakeholders, and subject-matter experts; identify missing information; question assumptions; clarify business rules; and document decisions.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical issues, tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations clearly to non-technical users.
- Ability to constructively challenge weak requirements and assumptions, and willingness to support the final business decision once it is made.
Technical Capability
- Strong proficiency in at least one modern technology stack based on object-oriented programming or comparable structured application development.
- Ability to read and write production code, design complete applications, understand data access, and diagnose complex defects.
- Ability to perform meaningful code review and identify weak architecture, incorrect logic, code smells, usability concerns, and obvious performance issues.
- Strong understanding of one or more common application architecture patterns, such as MVVM, MVC, or Clean Architecture.
- Strong proficiency with LLM-assisted development and practical experience using Al agents for development, research, planning, or related technical work.
- Ability to verify and correct Al-generated work, recognize its limitations, and learn unfamiliar Al tools as they evolve.
- Strong working knowledge of database design and querying, interacting with cloud-hosted databases, and building cloud services.
- Ability to learn unfamiliar frameworks, services, and technologies with limited guidance.
Preferred Experience
- Formal software-management experience
- Experience with more than one modern technology stack
- Deep knowledge of MVVM, MVC, or another layered application architecture
- Experience with web applications and cloud functions
- Experience with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform
- Experience with Flutter, TypeScript/Node.js, React, .NET, mobile development, or desktop development
A specific degree and a minimum number of years of experience are not required. Demonstrated leadership, technical capability, judgment, and a record of completed work will carry more weight than credentials alone.
Pay: $90,000.00 - $110,500.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Referral program
Experience:
- Senior leadership: 2 years (Required)
Ability to Commute:
- Nappanee, IN 46550 (Required)
Work Location: In person
