Recruiting an Engineering Manager for a Technology Platform – Cyberfolks Case Study

Executive Summary

As part of the Direct Search process for Cyberfolks—a technology company that builds large-scale, advanced digital platforms for clients in the e-commerce and hosting sectors—we recruited an Engineering Manager responsible for leading the engineering team, making architectural decisions, and ensuring the stability and continuity of distributed systems in a rapidly evolving product environment.

The role was strategic for several reasons at once. Cyberfolks operates on a highly complex infrastructure that combines legacy systems with modern cloud components, and the Engineering Manager was to take direct responsibility for the product and technical areas, which directly impact the stability of services for thousands of business customers. The company was looking for a leader who not only manages people but also actively participates in shaping the architecture and technical direction —rather than merely reporting status updates to the CTO.

The key challenge of the project stemmed from the need to simultaneously meet four conditions that rarely occur together: deep engineering expertise in distributed systems, proven experience in people management, a willingness to work in an environment combining legacy systems and a modern tech stack, and a business-oriented mindset and decision-making ability that allows one to independently represent the technical domain within the organization. Each of these criteria individually narrows the pool of candidates—their combination reduces it dramatically.

Of the 165 candidates identified and evaluated during the process, two carefully vetted candidates made the shortlist, and the final candidate was hired within two weeks of the project’s start.

About the customer

Cyberfolks is a Polish technology company specializing in the development of advanced digital platforms and hosting solutions, serving clients in the small and medium-sized enterprise and e-commerce sectors. The company operates on a SaaS and PaaS model, offering both ready-made tools and infrastructure for more demanding business clients. The scale of its operations and the number of clients it serves place Cyberfolks among companies where the availability and performance of its platforms are a direct factor influencing revenue—both its own and that of its clients.

Cyberfolks combines the characteristics of a mature product company with the growth dynamics typical of organizations undergoing scaling. This means that complex legacy systems—built during earlier stages of development—coexist alongside actively developed modern components, which places special demands on the technical leaders managing these areas.

Business model and market position

Cyberfolks operates in several complementary areas of technology:

• hosting and cloud platforms for SME and e-commerce customers, with an emphasis on infrastructure reliability and scalability
• SaaS tools that support the management of customers' digital presence, including domains, email, and online stores
• e-commerce solutions that include integrations with OMS/WMS systems and sales platforms
• API infrastructure and multi-tenant platforms that support large-scale operations for business customers

A unique organizational context—a leader with real decision-making authority

The Engineering Manager role we were looking to fill was not that of a coordinator reporting to a higher-up. Cyberfolks was seeking someone who would help shape the architecture and technological direction, working directly with the CTO and taking full responsibility for stability and delivery within their area. Such a profile—an Engineering Manager with a genuine technical mandate, not just a managerial one—is significantly harder to find than a classic “team leader” and was the central focus of the requirements for candidates.

The recruitment challenge

The recruitment process for an Engineering Manager at Cyberfolks involved several overlapping constraints that drastically narrowed the pool of candidates actually available on the Polish market—particularly those who were ready and qualified to take on a role that combines technical depth with a full range of managerial responsibilities.

1. A very narrow range of competency requirements

Each of the project criteria is individually available on the Polish market. There are several hundred experienced engineering managers with a technical background. There are several thousand engineers who understand distributed systems. And there are even more people with experience in legacy environments. The problem arises when we combine these criteria: the candidate must simultaneously possess documented experience in managing engineering teams, practical knowledge of distributed system architecture sufficient to make independent architectural decisions, experience working with legacy systems, and communication and decision-making skills that enable effective collaboration with the CTO and representation of the technical domain to the entire organization. The product of these requirements—not the sum—narrows the pool to a few dozen realistically viable candidates in Poland.

2. A hybrid role that combines rarely seen areas of responsibility

Cyberfolks was looking for someone who doesn’t have to choose between being a technical leader and a people manager—someone who is both at the same time and does so intentionally. In practice, the market is divided into two groups: engineers with a strong technical background who struggle to fully transition into a managerial role, and managers who, over the years, lose their technical depth and become increasingly dependent on their team for architectural decisions. The profile sought by Cyberfolks—an Engineering Manager who actively participates in technical decisions rather than merely managing their implementation—is statistically rarer than either of these two variants on their own.

3. Experience in highly complex environments and legacy systems

The requirement to work with legacy systems in a cross-team environment meant that the candidate needed to have a very specific type of operational experience: managing delivery in the face of technical debt, balancing stability with modernization, and understanding how to make architectural decisions in an environment where greenfield projects are not an option. Such experience is gained over many years—and cannot be compensated for by theoretical knowledge or experience gained exclusively in modern environments.

4. The requirement to adapt to an organizational culture characterized by a high degree of autonomy

Cyberfolks offered an environment with a high degree of decision-making autonomy—which is a plus for the right candidate, but at the same time meant that the role wasn’t suitable for people accustomed to working in highly hierarchical corporations, where an Engineering Manager follows a roadmap set by several layers of management. Assessing cultural fit—whether a candidate truly thrives in an environment that demands independence, ownership, and direct responsibility for results, rather than just talking comfortably about it—was a separate challenge in the process.

5. Market Competitiveness for Senior EM Profiles

Engineering managers with solid technical and managerial experience are actively sought after on the Polish market by companies in the technology sector, often with offers from global employers (on a fully remote basis) and compensation packages that exceed the capabilities of Polish product companies. This means that even candidates who are a perfect fit in terms of skills may not be actively looking for a job or may not be considering offers below a certain salary level. Successful recruitment required reaching out to passive candidates —not just those who happen to be browsing job listings on recruitment websites.

6. Timing and the requirement for the candidate to be available on short notice

Cyberfolks couldn’t afford a candidate with a three-month notice period. The time pressure on the client’s side was real and intense—the role had to be filled quickly, which automatically ruled out some candidates who, in terms of qualifications, would otherwise have been considered. Verifying the actual notice period and readiness to start immediately became one of the first selection criteria, rather than—as is often the case in many projects—a question asked only at the end of the process.

7. Effective business communication with multiple stakeholders from group companies

The role of Engineering Manager at Cyberfolks required not only effective team management but also effective business communication with numerous stakeholders from companies within the group. The candidate had to be able to translate complex technical issues into business language that was understandable to a variety of audiences—from the CTO to representatives of subsidiaries with different priorities and contexts. While this skill is often claimed, it is less frequently substantiated by actual operational experience—we verified it during in-depth competency-based interviews by asking about specific situations and decisions made in multi-stakeholder environments.

Our Approach

The nature of the project—a highly specialized field, a tight client deadline, and the need to reach passive candidates—led us to choose Direct Search as our primary approach, supported by our AI tools for candidate screening and market mapping.

1. Clarifying the candidate’s actual profile

During the workshop phase with the client, we broke down the requirements into hard elimination criteria and areas of flexibility. It turned out that some elements of the job description—including certain technologies listed as “preferred” (e.g., Kafka, CDC, CQRS)—were desirable but not essential, provided the candidate had a strong foundation in distributed systems and a steep learning curve. This distinction was crucial: it allowed us to avoid eliminating candidates with very strong managerial and technical profiles solely because they hadn’t worked directly with a given technology. At the same time, we confirmed that ownership of delivery and experience in managing people are absolutely required and non-negotiable.

2. AI-driven sourcing from a closed pool of profiles

Instead of posting job listings and waiting for applications, we mapped the Polish community of Engineering Managers with experience in technology platforms, e-commerce, and cloud environments. Using our AI tools to analyze professional profiles, we reviewed 165 candidates, evaluating them based on a combination of managerial experience, technical background, and evidence of working in environments of appropriate complexity. We focused on profiles with experience at technology companies comparable in scale to Cyberfolks, particularly those with a history of combining people management with direct technical involvement.

3. In-depth competency-based interviews at an early stage

Before presenting any candidate to the client, we conducted in-depth competency interviews to verify not only their stated experience but also their actual level of autonomy in making architectural decisions, their management style when dealing with pressure and technical debt, and their real-world experience taking ownership of production systems—not just planning processes. For candidates with a corporate background, we also verified whether the decision-making autonomy offered by Cyberfolks was a genuine value to them, rather than a stated preference masking an accustomed preference for working in a highly structured environment.

4. Selective presentation instead of a broad shortlist

We made a conscious decision to present the client with two carefully selected profiles instead of a larger number of candidates “to choose from.” Both profiles met the strict criteria and were sufficiently diverse to allow the client to make an informed decision—without having to sift through many similar profiles with various shortcomings. A smaller number of candidates combined with a higher-quality selection shortened the client’s decision-making process and allowed the recruitment to be completed efficiently.

5. Close collaboration with the client and an efficient decision-making process

The feedback loop with Cyberfolks was concise and to the point—after each step of the process, we received clear feedback, which allowed us to fine-tune our criteria on the fly and avoid wasting time on candidates the client would have rejected for reasons they hadn’t articulated during the briefing. The client’s swift process —from the presentation of candidates to the hiring decision—was just as important as the quality of our selection.

The selected candidate — a Senior Engineering Manager with experience in global technology platforms

The person ultimately hired is an experienced Engineering Manager from the Tri-City area, whose career includes managing complex technology platforms in corporate and product environments—combining deep technical expertise with a proven track record in building and scaling engineering teams.

Experience and expertise

In his most recent role, the candidate served as Senior Engineering Manager at Nike, where he was responsible for customer experience services and internal AI/ML platform initiatives. As part of these responsibilities, he helped improve delivery predictability by approximately 20%, maintain service availability at 99.9%+, and increase the frequency of releases by approximately 25%. At the same time, he supported the evolution of MLOps capabilities based on Python, Databricks, and ML workflows, which resulted in a reduction in model deployment time by approximately 30%.

In his previous role as Engineering Manager at Nike, the candidate built an AI/ML platform from the ground up using AWS SageMaker, Databricks, and Kubernetes, working closely with data scientists. The platform enabled the implementation of over 10 ML use cases and reduced the time required to onboard new models by approximately 40%. At the same time, he delivered a Customer Experience platform that centralized documentation, APIs, logs, metrics, and service ownership data—reducing the time needed to find information about service ownership and platform documentation by approximately 50% when onboarding 25+ teams.

The candidate’s previous role at Nordea—as Execution Leader for Market Risk initiatives—provided him with key experience working in a highly regulated environment, with business-critical systems of high technical complexity. There, he coordinated delivery for three cross-functional teams, improving planning predictability by approximately 20% and reducing delivery bottlenecks by approximately 25%.

Why this candidate?

First, documented experience at the intersection of engineering and management. For several years, the candidate built and led engineering teams in large-scale, complex environments while remaining actively involved in technical work—including making independent architectural decisions and directly developing platform foundations. This is a rare combination that directly addresses Cyberfolks’ challenge.

Second, experience with platforms that have high availability requirements. Working on systems with 99.9%+ uptime in a global product company environment is an experience that directly translates into the standards Cyberfolks demands in terms of the stability of hosting and SaaS platforms.

Third, a proven track record in building platforms from the ground up. Building an AI/ML platform at Nike from scratch—covering the entire lifecycle: architecture, delivery, team onboarding, and scaling—is experience that Cyberfolks can directly leverage as it modernizes and develops its own product infrastructure.

Fourth, experience in cross-team and regulated environments. Working at Nordea—a banking environment with high standards for quality and compliance, and numerous interdependencies between teams—has equipped the candidate with the ability to coordinate delivery within complex organizational structures, which is directly relevant to the role at Cyberfolks.

Fifth, cultural fit in a highly autonomous environment. The candidate’s professional history clearly indicates a preference for roles that offer real ownership and a direct impact on results—not just the coordination of processes. Working in environments where the Engineering Manager is a co-architect of solutions, rather than merely a roadmap administrator, is his natural work environment.

What does this mean in practice?

Out of the 165 candidates analyzed during the process, two carefully vetted profiles were presented to the client — this result is a direct consequence of four overlapping criteria: the requirement for in-depth technical expertise in distributed systems, documented experience in people management, familiarity with legacy environments, and a good fit with an organizational culture that emphasizes high decision-making autonomy. In ad-based recruitment without these constraints, the pool of candidates would appear larger—but the percentage of profiles meeting all four criteria simultaneously would remain similar.

The ratio of 165 candidates in the pipeline to 2 profiles presented stems from a methodology in which the selection is carried out by us—not by the client. The client did not have to sift through dozens of resumes in search of a suitable profile but instead received two proposals ready for a decision. This ratio is only possible by combining AI tools for initial market mapping with manual verification of competencies through in-depth interviews.

The three methodological decisions that made it possible to complete the project in two weeks were: first, separating hard requirements from soft requirements during the workshop phase, which allowed us to avoid rejecting strong candidates due to a lack of specific technologies; second, focusing our sourcing exclusively on passive candidates with experience in environments of comparable scale, rather than waiting for applications; third, verifying the candidate’s notice period and availability early in the process, which helped us avoid a situation where the final candidate turned out to be unavailable within the required timeframe. The client could not wait—and this awareness shaped the selection criteria from day one of the project.

Key Findings from the Project

The Engineering Manager recruitment project for Cyberfolks yielded several observations worth highlighting in the context of similar recruitment projects:

It is the product of the requirements—not their sum—that defines the actual difficulty of recruitment. Clients often assess a project’s difficulty based on the number of requirements rather than their combination. Meanwhile, four criteria—each of which reduces the candidate pool by 50–70%—collectively reduce it by over 90%. Understanding these dynamics during the briefing stage allows for better planning of the process, a realistic assessment of time to hire, and informed management of client expectations.

Distinguishing between hard requirements and “nice-to-have” criteria is key to a project’s success. When recruiting for senior technical roles, clients often draft job descriptions as a list of expectations without any hierarchy of importance. A workshop that teaches how to truly distinguish between deal-breaker criteria and desirable extras not only improves the quality of sourcing but also prevents a situation where an excellent candidate is ruled out simply because they lack a specific technology they could master within a few months.

Selective presentation reduces the total duration of the process more effectively than rapid sourcing. In projects with tight client deadlines, speeding up the sourcing phase seems like the intuitive solution. In practice, the greatest time savings come from reducing the number of profiles sent to the client—each additional candidate on the shortlist means more meetings, comparisons, and time needed to make a decision. High-quality selection on the agency’s part directly translates to faster project completion on the client’s side.

Passive candidates are a key source of talent for senior Engineering Manager roles. In this category of positions, the number of candidates actively looking for a job at any given time is incomparably smaller than the overall pool of qualified candidates on the market. Recruitment based solely on job postings and inbound applications consistently overlooks the strongest candidates—those who aren’t actively looking but are open to the right opportunity—provided someone reaches out to them with the right message at the right time.

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