We are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Native Applications teams, responsible for the iOS and Android mobile applications we build and operate. In this role, you will own delivery outcomes, operational health, and team execution across our mobile app teams, ensuring high-quality user experiences, consistent platform performance, and strong release discipline on both platforms.
You will partner closely with platform Team Leads, backend services, infrastructure, and QA to ensure our native applications deliver compelling live and VOD experiences and personalized content to millions of users. This is a hybrid position based in Knoxville, TN, with regular collaboration across engineering, product, and design teams.
Responsibilities:
• Domain Ownership and Execution • Own delivery outcomes and operational health for iOS and Android applications • Lead execution across both platforms, ensuring feature parity, platform consistency, and release quality • Ensure consistent performance, reliability, and user experience across device types and OS versions • Translate product priorities into executable plans across native app teams • Balance feature delivery with platform stability, app store compliance, and technical debt reduction
• People Leadership • Directly manage iOS and Android Team Leads • Coach Team Leads on execution, release ownership, and people leadership • Ensure teams have clear ownership, priorities, and accountability • Support career development and performance management for all direct reports • Foster team health, engagement, and a culture aligned with our guiding engineering principles
• Delivery and Release Oversight • Accountable for release outcomes for native applications on both iOS and Android • Ensure teams follow shared release standards, rollout strategies, and App Store and Google Play submission processes • Partner with Team Leads during release windows and post-release validation • Review post-release analytics, crash reporting, and performance metrics • Ensure issues discovered after release are triaged and addressed quickly
• Operational Excellence • Act as an escalation point for native app incidents and production issues • Partner with infrastructure and backend teams during platform or delivery issues • Support incident response and post-incident reviews for mobile-related problems • Drive improvements in observability, crash reporting, and monitoring within native apps • Identify systemic reliability risks and prioritize remediation efforts
• Product Partnership • Serve as the primary engineering partner for the Product Director responsible for native applications, owning the relationship at the domain level • Collaborate closely with the Product Director on roadmap planning, providing engineering perspective on feasibility, sequencing, and technical readiness • Contribute to and review technical planning documents, architecture proposals, and delivery estimates that inform product decisions • Advise product on tradeoffs between feature delivery, platform stability, and technical debt, ensuring the engineering perspective shapes what gets prioritized and when • Bridge the gap between product vision and engineering reality, ensuring commitments are grounded in team capacity, platform constraints, and delivery confidence • Own the strategic-level conversation about how engineering teams are organized and resourced to support product goals, treating team structure as an engineering decision informed by product needs • Coordinate with product on cross-team or cross-pod initiatives that span multiple Team Leads or require domain-wide alignment
Requirements:
• What We're Looking For • 7 or more years of experience in software engineering with a focus on native mobile applications • 3 or more years of experience in an engineering management or senior technical leadership role • Strong experience with iOS (Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit) or Android (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose), with familiarity across both platforms • Deep understanding of mobile app lifecycles, performance considerations, and platform-specific failure modes • Experience managing delivery across multiple teams or pods • Proven ability to lead teams through releases and production issues on iOS and Android • Familiarity with App Store and Google Play submission, review, and rollout processes • Strong communication skills and ability to partner across disciplines
• Bonus Points • Experience with video playback, live streaming, or media-heavy mobile applications • Experience integrating analytics, ad tech, and personalization in mobile applications • Experience working closely with backend or streaming infrastructure teams
• Why Join Us • You will join an engineering organization where native mobile applications are a core product surface used by millions of viewers across the country. • At TEGNA, you will play a key role in shaping the reliability, quality, and evolution of our iOS and Android experiences. • You will have the opportunity to lead talented teams, improve how we ship and operate mobile applications.