Engineering leadership at WorkOS: Product, people, and impact

At WorkOS, we build the infrastructure that lets SaaS companies add enterprise features like SSO, Directory Sync, role-based access control (RBAC), user management, and more. These capabilities are what make an app “enterprise ready” from day one. Our users are engineers. They integrate WorkOS directly into their authentication and authorization flows, and they expect APIs, SDKs, and architecture they can trust at the core of their stack.

Because of that, we operate as a product engineering organization. The same engineers who write the code also talk to customers, study the market and competitive landscape, and work to understand customer problems in detail. Product work is not something that happens “before” engineering arrives; it is the work that engineers do.

In our world, engineering leadership looks different from more traditional engineering organizations as well. The role extends well beyond stand-ups and performance reviews, into product definition, execution, and quality. This post is a look at how engineering leadership operates at WorkOS today, why we’ve chosen this model, and how it works differently from typical software engineering management. Since engineers at WorkOS do real product work, engineering managers are leading within that model, not sitting aside it.

A flat leadership structure

Although we are continuously growing, WorkOS today has on the order of fifty engineers. Instead of building a deep hierarchy as we scale, we’ve deliberately kept the leadership structure simple. Every engineer's skip-level manager is the CEO. Engineering managers not only manage a team of engineers, but also collectively run the engineering organization. Everyone has direct access to the CEO.

Each engineering manager owns a distinct set of product areas. They are responsible for the strategy in that area (within the broader direction of the company), the technical quality and architecture of the systems, the composition and health of the team, and the way their product fits into the overall WorkOS platform and story.

We keep coordination tight with a simple cadence. Each week the engineering managers meet with the CEO to discuss priorities, cross-team dependencies, and major product questions. Engineering managers meet again later in the week as a leadership group to compare roadmaps, share context, and handle org-wide topics like hiring standards, process changes, and platform initiatives.

The mental model is that each engineering manager runs a small startup inside the company. They are expected to know their customers, understand their market, chart a path for the product, and build and support the team that makes it real. Proximity is a feature of the role: engineering managers stay close to the work to deliver better outcomes.

What an engineering manager actually owns

Because of this structure, the engineering manager role at WorkOS is intentionally broad. It blends technical and product leadership, team building, and cross-functional work.

First, technical depth. We’re an infrastructure company so engineering managers need to be able to reason about systems. Engineering managers lead or participate in architecture reviews, ensure that new components fit cleanly into shared concepts, and partner closely with infrastructure and security on platform primitives. They are comfortable making concrete tradeoffs on scope, latency, complexity, and time-to-market.

Second, product sense. A strong engineering manager can bend an entire product area’s trajectory. Our surfaces are deeply technical, but they’re still products. Someone has to decide what “good” means for, say, an advanced RBAC model or a Radar rule editor. Engineering managers talk directly to customers, hang out in shared Slack channels, join calls, and follow support threads. They also ensure that the product lifecycle is run end-to-end. This means making sure the engineering team understands the problem, has shaped an informed solution, and is following reliability and security best practices through build and launch. In a more traditional setup, product managers would own the roadmap and feature specs, but at WorkOS, engineering managers are responsible for this product work.

Third, building great teams. Unlike organizations built around larger junior teams, our managers coach a smaller group of experienced ICs. The job is to create an environment where those people can do the best work of their careers: clear goals, honest feedback, and as little bureaucracy as possible. That includes the harder parts of leadership — managing expectations, having direct conversations when things aren’t working, and occasionally making tough calls about performance or fit.

Finally, engineering managers share organization-wide leadership responsibilities. Each manager also takes on company-level work. That can include owning parts of the hiring process and interviewing rubric, refining how we execute the project life-cycle, or leading cross-team initiatives. The expectation is that engineering managers are not only stewards of their own teams, but also stewards of how we operate as an engineering organization.

Taken together, the role demands technical taste, product judgment, people leadership, and a deep sense of responsibility for outcomes.

Cultural expectations for engineering leaders

Beyond structure and responsibilities, there are cultural expectations that define what “great” looks like in this role.

One is ownership and genuine enthusiasm. Process is important, but we care more that an engineering manager is deeply invested in what we are building and who we are building it for. Engineering managers bring the same passion that a startup founder would bring. They care about who they hire. They care about product quality and developer experience. They are willing to go above and beyond when the product, the team, or the company needs it.

Another is a high bar on collaboration and adaptability. We sometimes pass on very strong technical candidates if they show little interest in customers or product discovery, or if they struggle to adapt their thinking across ambiguous domains. For engineering managers, the bar is even higher. They need to navigate fuzzy product spaces like new security features or AI-adjacent integrations. They need to work with other managers and with the CEO, all of whom come with strong points of view. They need to handle situations where different customers, or different internal teams, are pulling in different directions and still arrive at a clear decision.

We also expect comfort with ambiguity and building while learning. WorkOS is still growing. Some processes are well defined; others are still evolving. Engineering managers are not just following a fully baked operating manual, they are helping to write it and rewrite it as the engineering team grows. Engineering managers have to balance shipping with learning: moving quickly enough to deliver value, while also using each project to refine how we build and how we organize.

This model is intentionally not one-size-fits-all. There’s no tall hierarchy to climb. Leadership is measured in impact and judgment, not in the number of direct reports someone has. It works best for engineering leaders who want to be close to customers, deeply involved in product discovery, and accountable for building things that deliver real, measurable value. For those excited by owning a product area end to end by shaping strategy, making tradeoffs, and driving adoption and revenue, then WorkOS is a compelling place to lead. For those, on the other hand, that prefer a management role focused primarily on executing top-down direction or insulating teams from the uncertainty of changing priorities and product discovery, this model will likely feel uncomfortable. That’s by design.

Where we’re headed

Looking ahead, we expect engineering headcount to double, more product lines to graduate from incubation to fully staffed teams, and our involvement in the AI infrastructure ecosystem to deepen as we work with more customers in that space.

It is likely that the org chart will evolve along the way. What is less likely to change are the core principles that sit underneath that structure: product discovery led by engineers who are close to customers; engineering managers owning product areas, not just teams; a tight feedback loop between the CEO and engineering leadership; and a strong emphasis on developer experience and helping startups go up-market.

That, in practice, is what engineering leadership at WorkOS looks like today: a blend of product ownership, technical stewardship, team building, and process evolution. All of this is anchored in the belief that the best way to build infrastructure for developers is to have engineers, and the people who lead them, own the whole problem.

If that belief resonates with you, we’d love to talk. You can explore opportunities on our careers page or reach out directly about engineering leadership roles.