Head of Engineering

This is not a typical dating app—we’re unapologetically real, a little cheeky, and all about empowering people to connect on their terms. With over 17 million users worldwide and ranked among the Top 10 most-downloaded dating apps in the U.S. last year, we’re making love (and everything in between) more transparent, more fun, and less awkward. We're a lean, passionate team building something that actually helps people feel seen and understood—and now we’re looking for a Head of Engineering to help us scale, experiment boldly, and bring smoother love stories to life. Overview: ****In your first months, your primary focus won't just be shipping code - it will be running the team and engineering the 'machine' that builds the product. You will have direct ownership over our high-level architecture, experimentation systems, and data flow. While we use Ruby on Rails, we value your ability to scale systems and lead people over specific language syntax. We need a Head of Engineering who can ensure our backend is a competitive advantage, someone who sees architecture, reliability, and scale as product decisions, not just technical ones. Expect a 40/40/20 split between people management, technical leadership (planning, architecture) and hands-on work (coding, code reviews, debugging). You’ll have a free hand on day-to-day technical decisions. The only things that go through the co-founders are quarterly planning and major technical changes - the kind that take weeks of work and shift direction. Everything else is yours to call. Key Accountabilities: Own and drive the company's backend technical vision, architecture, and long-term scalability plans; At first, manage 4 senior backend engineers and oversee 1-2 DevOps engineers (1:1s, hiring, firing, performance, growth); Over time, take ownership of the full technical team (±15 members); Translate product goals into clear technical roadmaps, sprint plans, and engineering priorities Take architectural decisions around performance, infrastructure, reliability, and scaling for millions of users Establish and improve engineering processes, code quality standards, and deployment pipelines Own key technical challenges: performance bottlenecks, data flow, caching strategies, infrastructure decisions Drive evolving adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices across the team (code generation, review, testing, tooling Code review and hands-on coding Run and support A/B testing and experimentation infrastructure (~5 experiments/week) Ensure API speed, uptime, data accuracy, and architectural consistency Design backend systems focused on scale, resilience, and fast iteration Implement security and privacy best practices Requirements: 8+ years of backend development experience in production environments; Someone who has actually led engineering teams - not "informally mentored," but owned hiring, firing, performance reviews, and team structure; Someone who's held real responsibility: Director of Engineering, Head of Engineering, CTO at a smaller company - that level; You might currently be a Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, or Engineering Manager - title matters less than whether you've had real ownership over people and systems; Startup experience is non-negotiable. You've recently built or run engineering at a company under 50 people; Owned the backend architecture for a mobile-first, consumer-facing app; Still writes code and wants to. You're not looking to become a full-time manager; Strong communication skills - ability to explain tradeoffs, align stakeholders, and lead engineering discussions across a distributed team (EU and Asia); Proven experience scaling backend systems to high traffic (10k+ DAUs, ideally much higher); Experience driving technical planning, sprints, and feature delivery; Deep understanding of distributed systems, databases, caching, and performance optimization; Decisive. We move fast. You need to make calls, not build consensus committees. What We Don't Need: Enterprise/big-company veterans who managed 50+ people and haven't touched code in years; Process-heavy operators who want to install Jira workflows before shipping anything; People who need to be told what to build. Nice to Have: Ruby on Rails experience; Experience working in B2C startups (mobile, social, marketplace, etc); You’re Our Kind of Teammate If You: Communicate clearly and confidently in English; Have a "let’s get it DONE" mindset; Are obsessively detail-oriented (you notice everything); Enjoy sharing ideas and building things together; Can collaborate with a global, remote team like a pro. We offer: Competitive salary & bonuses; 28 days of paid vacation; Compensation for training & gear; The star perk: an annual team workation trip (Thailand, Indonesia). #J-18808-Ljbffr Itcharm