Development Manager

About the Role

BusPlanner is at a critical inflection point. We are scaling fast, our customers are counting on us, and execution - clean, predictable, urgent execution - is the single biggest lever we have. This role exists because we will not leave that lever to chance.

The Development Manager is the right hand of the CTO. You will report directly to the CTO and act as the operational engine behind everything our development team ships. The Product team decides what we build; you make sure it ships - on time, in clean two-week increments, with no surprises and no excuses. This is a uniquely high-trust, high-leverage role: it is not a typical reporting line, but the moment we are in demands a partner the CTO can hand the reins of execution to and trust completely.

This is an execution role, not a people role. You will not manage anyone's career, but you will own how the work flows: how stories get broken down, how the daily scrum runs, how blockers get cleared, how every release goes out the door on schedule and fully tested, and how Jira and Confluence stay sharp enough to give the whole company - and the CTO - a real-time view of progress.

If you find satisfaction in turning a messy backlog into a predictable, well-scoped, blocker-free sprint - and shipping it on time, every time - this role was built for you.

What You'll Own

Sprint Execution

• Sprint cadence. Run the two-week sprint cadence end to end - sprint planning logistics, daily scrum, mid-sprint check-ins, sprint review prep, and retros.
• Story and task breakdown. Take stories handed off by Product and ensure every one is broken down into small, well-defined tasks of 1-2 days of work. No more multi-week tasks with fuzzy edges. Every task has clear acceptance criteria, an owner, and a real estimate.
• Daily scrum and blocker resolution. Lead a crisp, time-boxed daily scrum that surfaces blockers fast. Drive every blocker to resolution - chasing dependencies, escalating where needed, and refusing to let work sit idle.

Release Management

• Release schedule integrity. Plan, coordinate, and ship every release on schedule. Releases going out late is a problem we are solving with this hire - the bar is simple: releases do not slip. You own that outcome.
• Test and documentation gate. Verify that every item in a release has been fully QA'd and signed off, and that documentation (release notes, internal docs, customer-facing where applicable) is complete and accurate before ship.
• Cut-it-or-ship-it discipline. If an item fails QA or is not ready, coordinate with Product, Engineering, and QA to revert it cleanly out of the release rather than holding the whole train. Schedule wins. Quality wins. Scope flexes - that is the order.
• Company-wide release review. Run a short, well-prepared release review for the company after each release. Tight summary of what shipped, what was deferred and why, what to watch for, and what's coming next. The whole company should leave knowing what just happened.
• Release coordination. Coordinate the moving parts of every release - code freeze, QA windows, deployment timing, rollback plans, communications, and post-release verification - so nothing falls through the cracks.

Visibility and Tooling

• Visibility and reporting. Be the source of truth for sprint and release health. Burndown, velocity, scope changes, carry-over, release readiness - you know the numbers and you flag risk early to the CTO before it becomes a fire.
• Tooling ownership. Own Jira and Confluence as systems. Configure workflows, boards, fields, automations, and templates. Keep the data clean. Train developers on the right way to use them. The tools should make the team faster, not slower.

Partnership and Process

• Right hand to the CTO. Serve as the CTO's operational right hand. Translate priorities into execution plans, surface trade-offs early, and keep the development engine running smoothly so the CTO can focus on technology strategy, architecture, and the work only they can do.
• Cross-functional coordination. Partner closely with Product, QA, Design, and DevOps so handoffs are tight and dependencies surface before they bite.
• Process improvement. Continuously refine how we estimate, plan, release, and execute. Bring scrum discipline without bringing scrum theatre.

How We Work With AI

BusPlanner is investing in agentic development as a real productivity lever. Claude Code and tools like it are part of how our team plans, ships, documents, and supports our product - and that bar is rising fast. The Development Manager will be expected to spot where agentic tooling can compress sprint cycles and release effort, help the team standardize on the workflows that work, and stay current on the landscape so we are not the last to adopt the next thing that matters.

How We'll Measure Success in the First 90 Days

• Every sprint launches with stories broken into 1-2 day tasks, each with clear acceptance criteria and an owner.
• The daily scrum is crisp, on-time, and consistently surfaces blockers within 24 hours of them appearing.
• Sprint completion rates are predictable and trending up. Carry-over is the exception, not the norm.
• Releases ship on schedule, every time. Items that aren't ready are cleanly reverted, not allowed to delay the train.
• Every release ships with full QA sign-off and complete documentation, and is followed by a tight, well-prepared company-wide release review.
• Jira and Confluence are clean, well-configured, and trusted across the company as the single source of truth for development work.
• The CTO has full visibility into the state of every commitment without ever having to ask, and feels they have a true operational partner in this seat.

What This Role Is Not

• This is not a people-management role. You will not manage developers' careers, performance reviews, hiring, firing, comp, or 1:1 development plans. Those responsibilities sit with the CTO and engineering leadership.
• This is not a product role. Product owns the what. You own the how and the when.
• This is not an individual contributor / coding role. This is not a hands-on coding role.

Requirements

What You'll Bring

• Scrum Master certified. Active Scrum Master certification (CSM, PSM, or equivalent).
• Jira and Confluence expertise. Power-user level skill with Jira and Confluence - not just using them, but configuring them. Workflows, custom fields, JQL, automations, board setup, dashboard building, permission schemes, and Confluence space architecture.
• Hands-on experience with agentic development. Practical experience using Claude Code (or comparable agentic coding tools) to compress real work - generating release notes, writing Jira and Confluence automations, scaffolding documentation, summarizing sprint activity, drafting QA checklists, accelerating onboarding. You see AI-augmented workflows as a force multiplier on execution, not a novelty.
• Proven execution track record. Demonstrated experience running sprints for a software development team, including taking ownership of story breakdown and ensuring tasks are sized to 1-2 days.
• Release management experience. Demonstrated experience owning release schedules and shipping software releases on time. Comfortable making the hard call to revert an item out of a release rather than letting the schedule slip.
• Detail orientation. Meticulous, detail-oriented, and allergic to ambiguity. You catch the gaps no one else sees and you don't let things slip through - especially not into a release.
• Communication. Strong written and verbal communication. Able to facilitate developers, push back when scope is unclear, present a tight release review to the whole company, and brief the CTO and other leaders without drama.
• Operating tempo. Comfort working at a pace that matches a company in growth mode, with shifting priorities and high stakes - and the judgment to know when to flex versus when to hold the line.

The DNA We're Hiring For

This is the part our CEO cares most about - and the part the CTO will be looking for first. Skills can be sharpened. DNA can't.

We're looking for:

• A killer work ethic. You out-work the room without being asked. You finish what you start.
• Coachable. You take feedback like a gift. You adjust quickly and you don't get defensive.
• A good attitude. You bring energy into the room. You make the team better just by being on it.
• Ownership mentality. If it's broken, you fix it - even if it's not technically your job. You think and act like an owner.
• High urgency and intensity. You move with urgency. You operate at high intensity. You don't drift, and you don't let the team drift.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses.
• Full health and wellness benefits.
• Flexible work hours and remote-friendly setup.
• Modern operations tooling and the autonomy to shape how the hardware deployment pipeline runs.
• A collaborative team culture focused on flawless customer deployments and being a true partner to the districts we serve.