Software Development Manager

About Curve Dental:

Curve Dental is the leading cloud-based dental practice management platform, helping thousands of dental practices streamline operations, improve patient experiences, and grow their businesses.

We’re entering the next phase of the Curve platform.  We believe the future of dental software isn’t simply AI-powered, it is AI-enabled.  Curve is building a shared intelligence platform that brings agentic AI into every aspect of the dental practice.  From revenue cycle management and patient communications to scheduling, clinical documentation, insurance workflows, and operational automation, our goal is to create intelligent systems that help practices operate more efficiently while allowing dental teams to focus on delivering exceptional patient care.

To help bring this vision to life, we're looking for a Software Development Manager to join our team.  You'll lead one or more high-performing development teams, working alongside our Architecture and Product teams to design, build, and deliver the production software that powers intelligent workflows  throughout the Curve platform

We move quickly, collaborate closely, and take ownership. Whether you're coaching a developer, unblocking a team, driving a release, or rolling up your sleeves on a difficult technical problem, you'll be expected to lead from the front and understand that a project isn't done until it's in production and accepted by our customers.

What You'll Do

As a Software Development Manager at Curve, you'll lead one or more software development teams, working alongside Product Managers, Architects, and other Development Managers to deliver high-quality software that advances Curve's platform.

People Management:

• Continuously monitor and support the performance and growth of your direct reports
• Own performance management, mentoring, feedback, and career planning for individual developers
• Provide input into the performance process for non-development team members (e.g. QA, Product Owners, UX)
• Lead recruitment and onboarding for software developers on your teams
• Handle disciplinary actions in coordination with senior management as needed
• Manage team schedules, availability, and general administration

Technical:

• Participate in and coordinate the research, prototyping, and selection of new tools and technologies; assist in their implementation and rollout across the organization
• Recognized within the development organization as technically skilled in one or more key technologies or practices, and able to contribute meaningfully beyond your core area of expertise
• Perform code reviews to ensure adherence to design and coding standards, and champion the value of code review culture across teams
• Participate in architectural design alongside software architects, infrastructure architects, and development leads
• Coordinate with other engineering managers and architects to identify improvement opportunities across the product suite and prioritize technical debt
• Evangelize software testing and quality assurance, making appropriate use of both automated and manual testing — and help set realistic coverage targets that lean toward quality wherever practical.
• Contribute to setting realistic code coverage targets that balance quality and delivery speed — with a lean toward quality wherever practical
• Balance technical debt reduction against the business need to deliver new functionality
• Stay current with industry developments, emerging AI technologies, and modern software development practices
• When needed, pair-program with a developer or take on development work to keep a project moving

Management

• Coordinate day-to-day development activities
• Manage dependencies within and between project teams
• Serve as the primary point of contact for removing blocking issues
• Work alongside Product Manager on technical backlog definition, estimation, and maintenance
• Define and coordinate the work necessary to deliver on a project for all relevant stakeholders 
• Ensure requirements are well understood and sufficient to maintain team velocity
• Lead estimation and forecasting, helping teams plan realistic delivery timelines
• Assist with deployment, validation, release, and rollback activities
• Work closely with the infrastructure and operations team to coordinate product rollouts, provide input on  monitoring, and support production issues
• Be accountable for the transparency, execution, and successful delivery of your team's projects
• Drive continuous improvement across your team's processes, tools, and communication
• Engage with customers and vendors on new software features or products when needed
• Some off-hours work is required for production releases; Curve practices continuous delivery, so off-hours deployment work is infrequent

What We’re Looking For

Required Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience leading or managing software developers building large-scale web applications
• 8+ years of professional software development experience building enterprise or SaaS software
• Proven ability to deliver high-quality software in an agile SaaS environment
• Strong understanding of AWS architecture best practices
• Proficiency in relational databases and data storage technologies
• Strong experience with object-oriented development in one or more languages (C#, Java, PHP, or similar);
• Experience with REST APIs and JavaScript frameworks in rich web applications
• Proven ability in system design and architecture, with a focus on scalability, reliability, and performance
• Experience writing user stories and breaking down high-level requirements into smaller, well-defined development tasks
• Demonstrated ability to organize, manage, and lead multiple teams focused on different objectives
• Ability to manage dependencies, remove obstacles, and keep teams productive
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience collaborating across product management, architecture, UX, QA, and customer support teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience recruiting and onboarding software developers
• Experience in healthcare or other highly regulated SaaS environments
• Experience using and encouraging modern AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or similar)
• Familiarity with AI/ML concepts and experience working alongside AI-focused development teams

What Success Looks Like

During your first year, you will:

• Become the leader your teams and partners trust and rely on.
• Consistently deliver high-quality software that advances Curve's AI-enabled platform
• Build strong working relationships across product management, architecture, customer success, and peer engineering teams
• Establish a high-performance team culture grounded in accountability, quality, and continuous improvement
• Identify and drive initiatives that reduce technical debt and improve development velocity
• Lead your teams through the adoption of modern AI-assisted development tools and practices