R&D Manager

The Position

We are looking for an R&D Manager with a strong blend of technical expertise and people leadership. The ideal candidate brings proven experience managing both software development and QA teams within a SaaS or cloud-based product environment, combined with the technical depth to actively engage with architecture, code quality, and engineering standards.

This role requires superior interpersonal and communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively across teams in a distributed environment, partnering closely with onshore management and North American counterparts. Exceptional English language communication skills are absolutely required.

Working within a complex enterprise-grade ERP application, this person is accountable for the performance, growth, and output of their development team while maintaining a strong technical presence. The R&D Manager will balance day-to-day team management with active participation in technical guidance, code reviews, and architectural direction.

The chosen candidate will work out of the Contour Software Karachi resource center office as an extension of the division-based R&D department.

Job Responsibilities

Team Leadership & Management

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of software developers, fostering a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.

• Conduct regular one-on-ones, performance assessments, and constructive feedback sessions to support individual growth and team effectiveness.

• Assist in the hiring process, including candidate evaluation, interviews, and onboarding of new team members.

• Monitor and communicate team performance, providing timely updates and escalations to onshore management as needed.

• Resolve team conflicts and maintain a collaborative, inclusive, and productive work environment.

• Partner closely with onshore management teams to align on priorities, delivery expectations, and team direction.

Technical Oversight & Contribution

• Provide technical guidance and hands-on assistance to team members across development tasks, troubleshooting, and architectural decisions.

• Actively participate in and oversee pull request (PR) reviews to ensure code quality, consistency, and adherence to best practices.

• Contribute to architectural discussions and make recommendations for scalable, maintainable solutions within the existing product ecosystem.

• Stay current with modern cloud development practices and SaaS application design to inform technical direction and standards.

• Identify technical risks, implementation impacts, and recommend optimal approaches before development begins.

Process & Delivery

• Oversee team planning, task assignment, and sprint execution within agile development practices.

• Ensure development tasks are completed within required timeframes and product release timelines are met.

• Follow and contribute to software development processes, standards, and quality assurance practices.

• Highlight issues and risks at both task and team levels and work proactively to identify effective solutions.

• Other duties as assigned by management.

Job Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

• 10+ years of software development experience, preferably on a commercial software product team, including 5+ years of proven experience leading and managing development teams.

• Strong experience with .NET (C#) and Microsoft SQL Server, including database design and stored procedures.

• Solid understanding of cloud-based development and SaaS application architecture, including best practices for scalability, reliability, and security.

• Experience with modern front-end frameworks; Vue.js experience is a plus.

• In-depth knowledge of object-oriented programming, asynchronous programming, and multi-threading.

• Experience designing and developing web-based applications and APIs.

• Demonstrated ability to conduct meaningful PR reviews and uphold engineering standards across a team.

• Strong written and verbal English skills; the candidate must be able to work efficiently with North American counterparts.

• Proven ability to coach, mentor, and develop team members at varying skill levels.

• Experience conducting performance evaluations and delivering constructive, actionable feedback.

• Demonstrated ability to assist in hiring processes, including candidate assessment and interviewing.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to navigate and make decisions within a large and complex codebase.

• Proven ability to balance technical responsibilities with people management and cross-functional collaboration.