Engineering Manager - Application

Engineering Manager (Application) Lead the team building the applications and SDKs that bring ONDC to life. Delhi / Bengaluru (Work from Office) | 8+ years | 5 days WFO About ONDC ONDC is democratising digital commerce for all of India. The applications, developer SDKs and protocol tooling engineers build here don't sit in a demo — they reach shopkeepers, farmers and consumers across the country, and help decide how the nation transacts. That is where you come in. The Role This is a chance to build for a billion people. You'll lead the engineers building the applications, developer SDKs and protocol tooling that bring ONDC's network to life. You'll grow and inspire a team, mentor junior engineers into their best work, and put the right people and technology on the right problems — partnering with the Application Architect on the bigger picture. You'll also help pull the team into the future of engineering, championing agent-assisted, AI-driven software development. This is a high-ownership role reporting to Engineering Leadership and partnering closely with the Application Architect. What You'll Own Mentor and grow the team — coach junior engineers through pairing, reviews and career development. Plan, prioritise and deliver many concurrent projects on time with predictable quality across the portfolio. Deploy the right engineers, frameworks and tooling on the right problems. Partner with the Application Architect to consolidate overlapping apps and SDKs into shared building blocks that accelerate everyone. Champion AI-assisted engineering — adopt and spread agent-assisted software development best practices, and lead by example. Own quality — strong code review, testing, CI/CD and observability across every owned surface. What Success Looks Like You become the trusted lead of an engineering team that ships consistently — with mentored engineers doing their best work, shared building blocks replacing one-off apps, and AI-assisted engineering practices spreading across the team. What We're Looking For 8+ years in software engineering, including 2+ years managing and mentoring engineers. Proven delivery of web/mobile apps and developer SDKs at scale, from concept to production. Strong front-end (React / Next.js, TypeScript) and back-end / microservice / API foundations. Hands-on fluency with agent-assisted software development best practices, with a track record of moving teams in that direction. Sound build-vs-reuse-vs-consolidate judgment in partnership with architects. Cloud, containers and CI/CD know-how, with excellent communication and stakeholder skills. A strong plus Exposure to ONDC / Beckn or similar open-network ecosystems | experience shipping SDKs or developer platforms used by external partners | domain experience in commerce, fintech, logistics, or public digital infrastructure. This Role Is For You If... You want to lead engineers whose work reaches millions of Indians from day one, not an internal tool. You enjoy consolidating overlapping systems into shared building blocks as much as shipping new features. You want to pioneer AI-assisted engineering practices, not just adopt them last. And you want a rare mix of startup autonomy, deep technical challenge, and real public purpose. Why ONDC? You'll lead the application, developer-experience and protocol layer of one of the world's largest open commerce networks. You won't just manage a team. You will help decide how a nation transacts. Read more about ONDC (click to read) Visit our website at ondc.org McKinsey Report Our latest newsletter