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Portola · 23 hours ago

Agent Engineering Manager

San Francisco

Full-time

Onsite

Senior Level

5+ years exp

Tolan is an innovative company focused on creating an AI companion that interacts naturally with users. They are seeking an Agent Engineering Manager to design and operate complex agent orchestration systems and enhance human-agent collaboration while shipping product features through agent-assisted development.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Information TechnologyMachine LearningNatural Language Processing

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Break down ambiguous problems, delegate to agents, review their work critically, and course-correct when things go sideways

Design and operate complex agent orchestration systems

Develop patterns for human-agent collaboration

Ship real product features primarily through agent-assisted development

Qualification

AI coding assistantsAgent orchestrationSoftware engineeringEngineering managementDelegationHuman-agent collaborationAmbiguity managementFeedback skillsProblem-solving

Required

Have 5+ years of software engineering experience, with meaningful time spent in engineering management or tech lead roles

Know how to delegate, scope work, and give feedback that actually improves output—skills you've honed managing people

Have hands-on experience with AI coding assistants and agent orchestration

Have strong opinions on when to use agents vs. when to do it yourself

Thrive in ambiguity and have a knack for turning fuzzy goals into concrete, well-scoped tasks

Genuinely enjoy the 'managing agents' workflow

Preferred

Have built or contributed to agent orchestration tooling

Have written publicly about AI-assisted development workflows

Have experience with long-running, multi-step agent systems

Left management because you missed building, but still miss the parts of management that were about clarity and leverage

Company

Portola

Portola develops a state-of-the-art, 3D, voice-native AI companion featuring animated alien personalities for conversational support.

Founded in 2023

San Francisco, California, USA

11-50 employees

https://www.tolans.com

H1B Sponsorship

Portola has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2024 (2)

Funding

Current Stage

Early Stage

Total Funding

$30M

Key Investors

Khosla VenturesLachy Groom

2025-07-07Series A· $20M

2025-02-26Seed· $10M

Leadership Team

Quinten Farmer

Founder, CEO

Ajay Mehta

Founder and President

Recent News

Billboard

How Is the Portola Lineup Designed? The Festival’s Founder on His ‘Mad Scientist’ Approach

2025-09-19

Business Insider

'Man Francisco' not allowed

2025-08-19

Benzinga.com

AI Funding Frenzy: Investors Pour Nearly $100M Into Generative Tool, Advertising, Finance Companies

2025-07-19

Company data provided by crunchbase