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
