Director - Software Engineering

ABOUT THE JOB:

As the Director of Software Engineering, you will be the engineering leader for our team of 10-12 engineers, reporting directly to our President and serving as a key partner to our product leader. This is a role for a 'player-coach' who is excited to get their hands dirty, drive a high-performance culture, and have an outsized, tangible impact on the business. You will be eager and ready to make key strategic and architectural decisions.

We are looking for a leader who is motivated by the opportunity to increase team velocity and deliver customer value. You will have the autonomy to make key decisions, and do what is needed to get results, and be expected to bring your perspective to challenge us and make the company better. You'll be responsible for the output of the engineering team, championing a 'progress over perfection' mindset to quickly deliver prototypes and iterate based on customer feedback. This is a pivotal role in our company's transformation, and you'll be at the forefront of adopting AI tools and modern engineering practices to accelerate our growth.

Requirements:

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead and Mentor: Manage the engineering team with a focus on performance and output. Mentor engineers, foster a culture of ownership and accountability, and guide the team through technical challenges.
• Drive Velocity: Implement and refine processes to increase engineering velocity and throughput. Champion the adoption of AI-assisted development tools and other modern technologies to boost efficiency.
• Player-Coach: Remain hands-on with the codebase (ReactJS, Python) to guide architectural decisions and lead by example, dedicating approximately 10-20% of your time to direct contribution as needed.
• Business Impact: Partner with the product leader and President to align engineering efforts with business goals. Shape strategy and clearly articulate the business impact of your team's work, tying it to metrics like NRR, NPS, and customer adoption.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Use metrics like cycle time, uptime, and delivery ratios to identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, not blame.
• Cross-functional Partnership: Work in lockstep with product management and design. You will build technical and product roadmaps together, ensuring both teams are in sync - and you will make important architectural decisions and recommendations. Together you will work to influence key business outcomes.
• WITHIN 30 DAYS, YOU'LL:
• Understand and Build Trust: Establish rapport and credibility with the engineering team, product managers, and designers.
• Assess and Diagnose: Evaluate the current team structure, processes, technical debt, and delivery metrics, presenting an initial diagnostic report to the President.
• Deliver a Quick Win: Identify and implement at least one technical or process improvement that demonstrates a "progress over perfection" mindset.
• Get Hands-On: Begin contributing to the codebase to model the player-coach approach and gain a deep understanding of our technology.
• WITHIN 60 DAYS, YOU'LL:
• Implement Improvements: Roll out process changes that measurably improve velocity, predictability, or our say-do ratio.
• Pilot New Tools: Launch a pilot of AI-assisted development tools with the team, tracking adoption and productivity outcomes.
• Strengthen Partnerships: Improve collaboration between engineering, product, and design, resulting in smoother sprint planning and faster decision-making.
• Deliver Customer Value: Ship a meaningful feature or release that is tied to our business impact metrics (NRR, NPS, etc.).
• WITHIN 90 DAYS, YOU'LL:
• Drive Measurable Impact: Demonstrate clear improvements in engineering KPIs (e.g., reduced cycle time, improved uptime).
• Link Output to Business Metrics: Present a clear connection between engineering output and improvements in our key business metrics.
• Scale AI Adoption: Drive the adoption of AI-assisted development across the team, with all engineers regularly using valuable tools. Encourage experimentation and innovation time.
• Shape the Future: Formalize a 6-12 month engineering roadmap in partnership with product, balancing technical debt, innovation, and customer needs.
• MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
• 5+ years experience as a senior/staff software engineer
• History of leading technical projects, mentoring junior engineers, and being a go-to technical leader on a team.
• Experience in teams responsible for KPIs like cycle time, uptime, and/or delivery ratios.
• Ability to articulate how engineering work directly impacts business metrics.
• Experience working in a cross-functional team environment.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Fluency in ReactJS and Python.
• PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
• Experience managing a team of 8-12 engineers.
• A natural change agent who is not a defender of the status quo.
• Experience being a strong partner to product managers and designers.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code).
• Resilient and optimistic, with the ability to see ambiguity as an opportunity and motivate a team through uncertainty.

Benefits:

• Unlimited Paid Time Off (after 3 months probation)
• Permanent WFH