Director of Engineering

Role Overview

We are looking for a hands-on Director of Engineering to lead the design, development, and scaling of AI-first products and platforms. This role sits at the intersection of engineering execution, architecture, AI-driven product thinking, and cross-functional leadership.

This is a high-ownership role for someone who enjoys building real systems that ship and scale-not just managing teams or conducting research.

Key Responsibilities

1. AI-First System Design & Product Thinking

• Drive AI-first thinking across product, workflows, and user experience
• Lead adoption of LLMs, agent-based systems, and automation across internal and external products
• Evaluate AI tools and platforms (build vs. buy decisions)
• Ensure responsible AI usage (privacy, reliability, and trust)

2. Engineering & Architecture

• Own end-to-end system architecture (backend, frontend, mobile, AI layers)
• Design scalable, modular, and future-ready systems
• Review code and architecture for performance, security, and maintainability
• Balance rapid delivery with long-term technical quality

3. Infrastructure, DevOps & Reliability

• Own cloud infrastructure (AWS), deployments, and cost optimization
• Build reliable systems for AI workloads (latency, throughput, observability)
• Establish best practices for CI/CD, monitoring, logging, and security
• Ensure production readiness of AI systems (fallbacks, guardrails, evaluations)

4. Team Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing engineering team
• Set engineering standards and elevate code quality
• Drive adoption of AI tools within the engineering workflow
• Hire engineers with strong technical and AI-first mindset

5. Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product, Design, Sales, and Marketing teams
• Translate business needs into scalable technical solutions
• Clearly communicate technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders
• Contribute to roadmap planning with a focus on impact and feasibility

6. Business & Operational Awareness

• Understand the full lifecycle of an AI-driven startup (product, GTM, sales, support)
• Contribute to vendor, tooling, and cloud cost decisions
• Operate with a strong ownership mindset beyond engineering

Ideal Candidate Profile

• 10+ years of experience in engineering
• Experience across both corporate and startup environments
• Strong hands-on expertise (backend or full-stack preferred)
• Proven ownership in a Series A/B startup
• Experience building and deploying AI-powered systems
• Comfortable with infrastructure, DevOps, and production systems
• Strong communicator with business and product alignment
• Pragmatic, decisive, and execution-focused

What This Role Is

• A high-impact leadership role with direct influence on product and architecture
• Ideal for someone who sees AI as a core system primitive, not just a feature