Engineering Manager

About CoLab

At CoLab, we help mechanical engineering teams bring life-changing products to market years sooner.

We build AI for engineers designing cars, medical devices, and jet engines. Products this complex aren't sketched and sent to production. Teams spend months on iterations, reviews, and tests, predicting how every part performs before anything is built. CoLab is where those reviews happen, and we capture the rationale behind every change. Other tools show what changed between versions. Only CoLab knows why. That's how our AI helps manufacturers like Bobcat, Triumph Motorcycles, and GE Appliances make better decisions, eliminate rework cycles, and get to market faster.

Proudly based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, CoLab started with one customer in 2018. Since then we’ve raised a $72M Series C, been named the 57th fastest growing company in North America by Deloitte (Fast 500™), signed multi-year AI partnerships with companies like Bombardier, and grown to a team of 250+.

About the Role

We’re hiring an Engineering Manager to lead the team building AutoReview—CoLab’s AI-powered capabilities for automating mechanical design review.

This is a people leadership role that requires real technical depth. You won’t need to be the engineer writing every solution, but you should understand software and web architecture well enough to pressure-test an approach, spot when an estimate doesn’t add up, and ask the question that changes the conversation.

You’ll work closely with Product to turn broad ideas into a roadmap the team can confidently execute. That includes making early calls on feasibility and scope, then giving engineers the context and autonomy to work through the details.

The technical problems are substantial: DFM checks, clash detection, BOM consolidation, clearance analysis, bulk AutoReview workflows, and increasingly, the intersection of 2D engineering data and machine learning.

Our Ideal Candidate

• You’ve managed engineers working on technically complex web applications—ideally involving geometry, 3D data, geometric processing, CAD, graphics, or adjacent domains.
• You care deeply about people and understand the technology they’re building. You stay connected enough to the work to identify risks early without becoming the person everyone depends on for every decision.
• This team is smart, motivated, and eager to move. Your job isn’t to manufacture ambition; it’s to provide clarity so that ambition is focused on the right problems.
• You’ll also help establish clearer, respectful boundaries between Engineering and Product ownership. If you enjoy building that kind of trusting partnership while navigating ambiguity, you’ll do well here.

Job Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and support the engineers responsible for Build AutoReview.
• Partner closely with Product to define priorities, assess feasibility, roughly scope initiatives, and build realistic timelines.
• Maintain enough technical context across projects to surface risks, dependencies, and questionable assumptions early.
• Help the team deliver major AutoReview initiatives, including DFM checks, assembly analysis, and bulk review workflows.
• Work across Engineering, Product, and the applied ML Team as AutoReview expands into areas where ownership and technical approaches are still evolving.
• Create focus when priorities change quickly because of new customer insight, technical developments, or advances in AI and ML.
• Build an environment where engineers have clear context, meaningful ownership, and the support to do excellent work.

Qualifications

• Experience managing software engineers in a technically complex product domain.
• Strong technical foundation in modern web application and software architecture.
• Experience with geometric processing, 3D/CAD applications, graphics, or similar technical systems is a strong asset.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with Product on roadmap planning, technical feasibility, estimation, and prioritization.
• Comfortable navigating evolving AI/ML technologies and understanding how they affect product and architecture decisions.
• Able to move quickly through new information, make thoughtful decisions, and communicate tradeoffs clearly.

Extra Details

This is a full-time, permanent position with a competitive compensation package that includes stock options. We offer comprehensive benefits and flexible vacation. This is a remote position open in Canada and the US. 

Equity Note

Frequently cited statistics show that people who identify with historically marginalized groups are likely to apply to jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. We encourage you to help us break that statistic and apply even if you don’t meet every single qualification—your potential is what matters most to us.