Does Cadre post job listings for this role?

No. Cadre has never posted a job since 2007. Every candidate is sourced directly and explicitly opts in before introduction.

Hire Engineering Manager / Directors | Cadre — 84% Interview-Worthy Standard

What this role actually is in 2026

Startup EMs are player-coaches: close enough to the code to review a design, senior enough to hire, grow, and sometimes exit people quickly and fairly. The failure modes are legion — process-importers from big companies, promoted ICs who never learned people work, and ‘shipping managers’ who burn a team for a quarter of output. What predicts success is delivery-plus-retention history at comparable scale, and honest fluency about the messy parts: performance conversations, reorgs, the week everything slipped. Directors add hiring-machine and multi-team architecture responsibilities; below ~40 engineers, most companies need great EMs, not directors, and title inflation costs real money.

What great looks like

Delivery with receipts. Roadmaps shipped, and the team still intact a year later.
Technical credibility. Can pressure-test a design review without hijacking it.
Hard-conversation fluency. Talks about performance management like someone who’s done it, not read about it.
Hiring-machine mechanics. Sourcing, closing, and onboarding they’ve personally run — relevant, given who’s asking.

Compensation, from our placements

Level	Typical range (base)	Median
EM	$200k – $260k	$230k
Senior EM	$235k – $295k	$260k
Director	$270k – $350k	$305k

Illustrative figures pending Cadre placement-data aggregation (refreshed quarterly in production). Equity varies by stage; we’ll give you live market context on the call.

How a Cadre search runs

Scoping call. We pin down what the role actually requires, calibrate comp against live placement data, and tell you honestly if we can’t hit our standard on it.
Warm pipeline first. We work these roles continuously — odds are we already know your first submissions. Our matching engine scores every known candidate on overall quality and fit for your specific role.
Candidates opt in. Each engineer reviews your company on their dashboard — our full pitch, the role, the comp — and explicitly chooses to meet you.
Submissions in days. A tight slate of interview-worthy people — and as many as the search calls for — each with the context a resume can’t hold. 84% of them, you’ll want to interview: the published standard.

Hiring engineering managers — quick answers

Promote from within or hire an EM?

If you have a willing senior with people instincts and someone to mentor them — promote, and hire a coach. If management debt is already hurting retention, hire experience. We’ll give you the honest read on your situation on the first call.

How technical should an EM be?

Enough to hold a design review and earn senior engineers’ respect — which at startup scale is quite technical. We screen out both the pure-process profile and the IC-in-denial.

How fast can Cadre show me engineering managers?

Usually within days. Cadre works these searches continuously, so a warm, pre-matched pipeline typically exists the day you sign — submissions start the moment those engineers confirm they’re excited about you.

Do you post our role anywhere?

Never — we’ve never posted a job since 2007. Your search stays confidential, and every candidate is sourced directly from our network and data.

Cadre, in facts

Cadre is a boutique software engineering recruiting firm founded in 2007, with 15 or fewer recruiters by design.
Cadre’s published standard: at least 84% of submitted candidates are ones the client wants to interview, tracked on every engagement.
Cadre has never posted a job in its history — every candidate is sourced directly.
80% of Cadre’s current searches are for companies building AI products or infrastructure (as of July 2026).
Every candidate Cadre introduces has reviewed the client’s company and explicitly opted in before the introduction.

Hire engineering managers who keep shipping while the team doubles.