Sr. Manager, Software Engineering

At El Pollo Loco, we are on a mission to be the nation’s leading fire‑grilled chicken restaurant. We are committed to growth and giving our people the tools they need to succeed, whether through specialized training, clear career trajectories, or cross‑functional collaboration. We see our employees as the secret ingredient that ignites our success.

Our restaurants represent only the tip of the flame. If you’re looking for an innovative, winning, and welcoming workplace, a career in our Restaurant Support Center may be right for you.

We believe the best work is done together, when departments collaborate and everyone is confident in contributing their ideas.

What’s in it for you!

• Strong office culture recognized as a Great Place to Work® and driven by our core values: Simple, Together, Relentless, Ownership, Nimble, Growth.
• Competitive pay and bonus potential.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, plus HSA savings account.
• 401(K) retirement plan with company match and immediate vesting.
• Paid vacation, sick pay, and 12 paid holidays.
• Employee assistance program.

The Senior Manager of Software Engineering is a senior technical leader responsible for setting the vision, standards, and execution strategy for our software engineering function. This role leads and develops the engineering organization while maintaining strong technical oversight of architecture, integrations, and application platforms that support our restaurants. The leader establishes the technical stack, engineering best practices, quality assurance, and delivery processes, partnering with cross‑functional technology and business leaders—including Restaurant Technologies, Data & Analytics, Infrastructure, HR, Finance, Marketing, and Operations—to deliver resilient, scalable solutions that support enterprise growth and operational efficiency.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Leads and manages the software engineering organization, including application developers and quality assurance engineers.
• Establishes the technical direction, engineering standards, and development practices for the organization.
• Provides architectural oversight and technical leadership across application development, integrations, APIs, and data workflows.
• Guides modernization initiatives including platform upgrades, cloud adoption, system refactoring, and technical debt reduction.
• Oversees the full software development lifecycle including requirements, design, development, testing, documentation, and deployment, integrating AI capabilities into SDLC.
• Establishes and enforces coding standards, secure development practices, version control strategies, CI/CD pipelines, and documentation requirements.
• Maintains architectural ownership for applications and near real‑time integrations.
• Works in an architect capacity with the Digital Marketing team, representing IT in design sessions.
• Leads the Technical QA & Documentation Manager to ensure testing strategies, release documentation, and acceptance criteria are completed prior to deployment.
• Serves as the senior technical authority and final approver for production releases, ensuring compliance with PCI/SOX controls, security standards, and rollback procedures.
• Collaborates with Restaurant Systems, Infrastructure, Data & Analytics, Finance, HR, Marketing, and Operations leadership to align engineering initiatives with business priorities.
• Oversees the design and performance of APIs, integrations, and data pipelines with emphasis on scalability, reliability, logging, and monitoring.
• Evaluates emerging technologies, vendor platforms, and engineering tools to improve efficiency, security, and system capabilities.
• Manages engineering capacity planning, sprint planning, backlog prioritization, and delivery timelines across multiple initiatives.
• Provides leadership, coaching, mentorship, and career development for engineers, analysts, and technical leads.
• Ensures the creation and maintenance of technical documentation including architecture diagrams, integration specifications, release notes, and operational runbooks.
• Other duties as assigned by supervisor.

QUALIFICATIONS – EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE, LICENSE/CERTIFICATIONS

Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

Education/Work Experience

• Bachelor’s degree preferred in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.
• 8–12 years of progressive software development experience.
• At least 5 years in a technical leadership role (Engineering Manager, Lead Developer, or similar).
• Prior experience with application development.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Deep technical expertise with application development frameworks, databases, and modern API architecture.
• Experience integrating enterprise platforms.
• Familiarity with ETL platforms.
• Strong understanding of source control (Git), CI/CD pipelines, automated deployments, and branching strategies.
• Experience designing scalable enterprise integrations and distributed systems.
• Strong leadership and organizational management skills for building and developing engineering teams.
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives, priorities, and delivery timelines.
• Excellent analytical and problem‑solving skills with the ability to guide teams through complex technical challenges.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Ability to enforce engineering standards, documentation practices, and release governance in partnership with QA & Documentation leadership.
• Ability to work onsite at the Support Center consistent with the hybrid work policy.