Director of Engineering

About Neuroscale Neuroscale is building the AI recruiting operating system, a unified platform for your entire talent organization, from first touch to hired. Arbi eliminates fragmented workflows, integrates directly with your ATS, and orchestrates AI agents for sourcing, outreach, screening, and candidate intelligence end-to-end. By combining reasoning-optimized models with deep workflow automation, Arbi helps talent teams win more top candidates with dramatically less friction. We’re backed by top operators and investors, and we’re growing fast. Our momentum is further fueled by blue-chip partners and programs, including the NVIDIA Inception Program, the HPE Unleash AI Program, and our active DoD SBIR Phase II award and contract. We’re now hiring a Director of Engineering, a senior technical operator who can be credible with customers, strong with engineering teams, and comfortable switching between strategy, demos, architecture, documentation, and hands-on execution in the same week. The Role As Director of Engineering, you will be the senior technical leader responsible for translating customer demand into product execution. You will partner closely with the founders, product, sales, customer success, and engineering teams to make Arbi successful in the field. This is not a purely internal product management role, and it is not just a feature-building role. It is a strategic, operational, and customer-facing engineering leadership role. You will own demos for federal and commercial customers, lead technical discovery, define customer-specific roadmaps, manage engineering execution, support SBIR Phase III and procurement activities, and build the engineering operating rhythm needed for Neuroscale AI to scale. Role Snapshot Location: Northern VA / DMV area preferred; open to candidates willing to relocate. Type: Full-time, senior leadership role. Compensation: Competitive base salary, meaningful early-stage equity, and performance-based upside. Final package based on experience and scope. Travel: Expected for customer demos, workshops, federal events, commercial sales cycles, and investor/analyst briefings. Reports to Founding leadership / CEO and CTO-level leadership. Ideal profile: Engineering leader who can manage teams, own customer-facing technical conversations, and build disciplined execution in a startup environment. What You'll Own Customer-Facing Technical Demos Own and lead technical demos for federal and commercial customers, including USAF, VA, OPM, CBP, enterprise prospects, HR leaders, and strategic partners. Clearly explain ARBI capabilities, architecture, workflows, integrations, AI evaluation methods, and deployment options to technical and non-technical stakeholders. Handle technical objections around AI accuracy, explainability, security, integration, data handling, scalability, and customer-specific workflows. Partner with sales and customer success to make every demo tighter, more repeatable, and aligned to customer outcomes. Customer Roadmap and Customization Process Convert high-level customer requirements into detailed engineering tasks, owners, timelines, sprint goals, and deliverables. Define the customer customization process for pilots, proofs of concept, enterprise rollouts, and federal deployments. Document feature requests, integrations, API needs, data requirements, viability checks, security requirements, and customer-specific configuration needs. Distinguish between one-off customization, repeatable implementation patterns, and core product roadmap items. Disciplined Engineering Execution Build and manage the engineering operating model: sprint planning, task breakdown, delivery milestones, resource allocation, engineering reviews, and accountability. Create visibility into engineering priorities, blockers, delivery risk, technical debt, and customer commitments. Reduce dependency on founders for every technical decision by creating repeatable systems, clear ownership, and stronger team-level accountability. Balance startup speed with sound architecture, reliability, product quality, and security. Federal Procurement and Technical Requirement Collection Support SBIR Phase III and federal opportunities by collecting procurement requirements, technical requirements, deployment constraints, security expectations, integration needs, and compliance considerations early in the sales cycle. Partner with founders and sales leadership to ensure proposals, statements of work, demos, and pilots are technically feasible and well-scoped. Help define technical win themes, customer proof points, implementation plans, and success criteria for federal and commercial opportunities. Ensure engineering is not surprised late in the sales cycle by missing requirements, unclear integrations, or unvalidated assumptions. SBIR Phase III and Strategic Customer Engagement Support ongoing engagement with USAF, VA, OPM, CBP, and other federal stakeholders through regular demos, technical check-ins, roadmap updates, and feedback loops. Help position ARBI as a continuously improving platform with clear proof points, measurable progress, and customer-driven evolution. Create technical narratives that show how ARBI supports recruiting modernization, resume assessment, talent pipeline intelligence, compliance, and workforce decision-making. Partner with leadership to turn customer conversations into credible implementation plans and future contract opportunities. Engineering Hiring and Team Building Help source, screen, technically interview, and onboard engineering talent for backend, frontend, AI/ML, integration, and DevOps roles. Use ARBI, referrals, networks, and structured interview processes to identify strong builders who fit the startup environment. Mentor engineers, raise engineering standards, and build a team culture around ownership, speed, quality, customer empathy, and disciplined delivery. Create onboarding materials, technical standards, code review expectations, architecture guidelines, and execution norms. Technical Sales Enablement Observe sales and customer success calls to identify common objections, customer questions, recurring technical gaps, and competitive pressure. Create demo scripts, battlecards, objection-handling guides, competitive comparisons, technical FAQs, short enablement videos, and internal training materials. Help the sales team confidently position ARBI against legacy ATS workflows, manual resume screening, HR tech tools, point solutions, and emerging AI competitors. Turn product knowledge into repeatable sales enablement content that improves conversion and shortens sales cycles. External Technical Representation Represent Neuroscale AI as the technical face of the brand in workshops, HR events, AI events, federal conferences, investor meetings, analyst briefings, and strategic partner sessions. Provide executive presence in CTO, CIO, CHCO, HR, acquisition, and technical stakeholder conversations. Support thought leadership around AI recruiting, explainable evaluation, workforce intelligence, agentic workflows, human-in-the-loop AI, and responsible enterprise AI adoption. Be comfortable on stage, in a whiteboard session, in a demo, and in a deep technical discussion. Product Feedback Translation Capture feedback from customer demos, pilots, user sessions, sales calls, and implementation conversations. Prioritize feedback into categories such as deal blocker, federal compliance need, customer-specific request, nice-to-have, technical debt, and core product feature. Partner with product and founders to make roadmap decisions grounded in customer value, technical feasibility, revenue impact, and strategic fit. Ensure the engineering team understands why features matter, not just what needs to be built. PoC Architecture and Technical Success Criteria Design customer proof-of-concept architectures and define clear success criteria, data flows, integration requirements, user journeys, and measurable outcomes. Guide architecture decisions for customer pilots, API integrations, deployment models, data handling, observability, and security requirements. Support technical whiteboarding with customer CTOs, CIOs, HR technology leaders, acquisition leaders, and enterprise architecture teams. Turn PoCs into repeatable implementation patterns that accelerate future deployments. What We're Looking For Required Qualifications 8+ years of software engineering experience, including meaningful experience leading engineering teams, technical programs, customer implementations, or product delivery. Strong technical foundation across modern SaaS architecture, APIs, integrations, cloud deployments, data workflows, and production software delivery. Experience leading engineering execution through sprint planning, roadmap decomposition, task ownership, delivery tracking, technical reviews, and release discipline. Ability to operate as a senior customer-facing technical leader with executive presence and strong communication skills. Ability to translate ambiguous customer needs into actionable engineering requirements, timelines, and implementation plans. Experience with AI/ML, GenAI, LLMs, RAG, workflow automation, analytics, or enterprise AI applications. Experience working with enterprise IT, security, compliance, data integration, and procurement stakeholders. Comfort with early-stage startup ambiguity, rapid context switching, and hands-on leadership. Strong judgment on when to build, when to configure, when to customize, and when to push back. Located in the Northern VA / DMV area or willing to relocate. Preferred Qualifications Experience in HR tech, recruiting technology, talent intelligence, workforce analytics, CRM/ATS platforms, staffing, higher education, or public sector workforce modernization. Experience supporting federal customers, government procurement cycles, SBIR/STTR programs, pilots, PoCs, or public sector demonstrations. Familiarity with ATS/HRIS systems such as Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Bullhorn, Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or similar enterprise systems. Experience building technical enablement materials, demo environments, product walkthroughs, battlecards, and customer-facing architecture diagrams. Experience hiring, interviewing, onboarding, and mentoring engineers in a startup or high-growth environment. Prior founder, founding engineer, engineering manager, technical product leader, forward deployed engineer, or solutions architecture experience. What Will Make You Successful Here You can be strategic without becoming abstract. You turn ideas into tasks, tasks into delivery, and delivery into customer impact. You are credible with executives, engineers, recruiters, HR leaders, sales teams, federal stakeholders, and startup founders. You can lead a demo, write a technical brief, manage sprint execution, interview an engineer, and whiteboard a customer PoC in the same week. You understand that Neuroscale needs more than feature development: it needs engineering discipline, customer translation, technical sales support, roadmap clarity, and team-building muscle. You operate with urgency, clarity, ownership, and strong communication. What We Offer A senior leadership role with direct impact on product, customers, engineering culture, and company growth. Competitive base salary, meaningful early-stage equity, and performance-based upside. Opportunity to help scale a fast-growing AI company serving commercial enterprises and public sector customers. Direct access to founders, customers, strategic partners, and investors. A high-ownership startup environment where strong operators can shape the company’s trajectory. Compensation Salary range: $160,000-$220,000, based on experience, location, and scope of responsibility. This role also includes meaningful early-stage equity and the opportunity to have a direct impact on the growth and success of Neuroscale AI. Equal Opportunity Statement Neuroscale AI is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse perspectives and are committed to building an inclusive team. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply, especially those who are excited to help build the future of AI-powered recruiting and workforce intelligence. #J-18808-Ljbffr