Director, Software Engineering

The Role:

As the Director of Software Engineering, you are a hands-on, "rock star" Java developer and visionary leader responsible for driving the development of enterprise-grade cloud SaaS/PaaS distributed applications. You will orchestrate the broader engineering ecosystem by deriving a roadmap that balances commitments, tech debt, and product innovation to mitigate risk. By balancing technical excellence with business ROI, you will spearhead SRE and agile process improvements, mentor team leads, and foster a high-performing culture. You will also act as the eyes and ears to customer needs, collaborating closely with customers, field teams, and company leadership to continually innovate the product experience. 

What You'll Do:

Engineering Leadership & Team Building: You are a rock star Java developer who has led and managed engineering teams, constantly thinking about improving team productivity, quality, and health. You will oversee the hiring process, which includes managing the forecast and budget, hiring awesome engineers, and promoting and growing existing team members. You will organize teams to make impactful changes, mentor leads, and empower them to mentor their own direct reports. Additionally, you will drive people management by delegating technical ownership over SME areas, establishing leaders, providing constructive feedback, advocating for career growth, conducting regular bi-weekly 1-on-1s, and resolving any internal conflicts.
 
Feature Development & Architecture: You will build and launch enterprise-grade SaaS/PaaS distributed applications in multi-tenant public and private clouds, delivering exceptional production-grade code. When clarifying requirements, you will evaluate if features fit into the product strategy and roadmap while considering the ROI of the effort spent. You will review designs for critical components and conduct cross-team UI/UX design review sessions to ensure consistency across the product. You have the autonomy to decide what percentage of your time is dedicated to hands-on coding and code reviews. For high-impact projects, you will maintain a clear vision of the risk versus reward for any production changes, emphasizing quality over quantity and ensuring strict quality checks.
 
Development Process: You practice agile scrum and will ensure there is a solid process established across all teams. You will be responsible for driving Agile delivery—including Scrum, retrospectives, sprint planning, and backlog refinement. You will also meticulously improve the release process and ensure that all teams are fully aware of release milestones.
 
AI Leadership & Engineering Productivity: You champion the adoption of AI throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), driving the use of AI as a force multiplier to enhance engineering excellence, accelerate software delivery, and improve product quality. You have hands-on experience designing, building, and deploying AI agents that automate engineering workflows, increase developer productivity, and support high-quality software delivery. You will be a strong advocate for AI-leveraged development, fostering a culture of responsible innovation while ensuring engineering best practices, security, and quality remain paramount.
 
Production Support & SRE: You will figure out the root causes of problems, drive SRE process improvements, and ensure those processes are strictly followed. You must keep your eyes on Production/SRE at all times and be ready to pull in resources before widespread impact is felt. For support, you will manage support escalations, maintain communication with the support manager, and participate in escalation calls with customers when needed.
 
Communication & Customer Focus: You will face customers directly to gather feedback, innovate, and improve their overall experience. This includes collaborating with the field team to establish and meet expectations, as well as helping ensure renewals go smoothly. As a spokesperson, you will work closely with other engineering leads and company managers, document your processes, and distribute company updates or any other useful information to your team.

What We’re Looking For:

10+ years experience developing enterprise SaaS products
7+ years Java experience
5+ years experience leading and managing off and on-shore engineering teams
Passion for consumable APIs and highly available distributed systems
Passion for building highly resilient, highly distributed and scalable capabilities used to solve complex enterprise needs
Passion for using generative AI in all aspects of the product
Deep understanding of distributed systems including HTTP protocols, distributed caching strategies, and observability
Hands on experience with REST/JSON architectures
Deep Understanding of SOAP/XML/JMS
BS/MS in Computer Science

Preferred Qualifications:

Implemented continuous delivery/AWS deployment solutions
Thrive on building high performance applications
Agile Project/Release Management
Accurate and fast decision making processes