Director of Engineering

Role Description

Own engineering strategy for the product and partner closely with the Principal Architect on system-level decisions, while driving execution and delivery.

• This is not a hands-off leadership role. You will operate as a primary individual contributor (80 to 90 percent hands-on) during the initial build phase, writing and shipping production code while setting the technical foundation and delivery pace.
• Over time, transition from a deeply hands-on builder into a leader of a growing engineering organization, balancing technical direction with team development as the product scales.
• Build high-concurrency backend services in Go or Python and leverage edge-first engineering with Cloudflare Workers and Durable Objects for global state synchronization.
• Architect production-grade AI infrastructure, including RAG pipelines and streaming LLM orchestration, while creating the underlying systems that enable the team to build with AI effectively.
• Integrate collaborative primitives such as CRDTs and real-time presence indicators to power a seamless multiplayer editing experience.
• Partner with product and design leadership to translate ambiguous product direction into clear technical plans and staged delivery.
• Establish and champion engineering excellence across the full stack, covering API design, type safety, testing, observability, and incident response.
• Drive build-vs-buy decisions and manage multi-tenant infrastructure using GCP primitives such as Spanner, Pub/Sub, and Cloud Run, ensuring systems are scalable, reliable, and secure.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 5+ years in senior leadership roles managing both individual contributors and engineering managers.
• A track record of building and scaling products from zero to production, including direct ownership of at least one true zero-to-one B2B product or platform build.
• Expert-level capability in Go or Python, along with React and TypeScript/Next.js. Must have written meaningful production code within the last 12 months and be willing to stay hands-on through the initial build phase.
• Deep technical fluency in headless CMS architectures and structured content systems (e.g., JSON-based schemas or Portable Text), and how they power flexible frontend applications.
• Direct experience building AI systems and developer tooling, including ownership of the underlying infrastructure (not just API integrations).
• Advanced proficiency designing and operating globally distributed systems using GCP and Cloudflare, particularly for real-time data synchronization and shared state.
• Strong systems thinking with the ability to balance speed and long-term scalability, and make decisions in ambiguous environments.
• Proven ability to build and scale an engineering team from a small founding group, including hiring, developing, and leading engineers and managers.
• Strong technical leadership with the ability to set standards, guide architectural direction, and raise the bar across the team.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field; Master’s preferred.

Requirements

• Base Salary: $216-270K per year. Note: Final offers are based on individual technical depth, experience, and location.
• Quarterly/annual bonus plus equity package.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Results-oriented PTO, sick days, and paid holidays.
• Parental leave, family planning, and monthly wellness/learning stipends.
• Equal Opportunity & Fair Chance: Decisions are made regardless of protected status. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, qualified applicants with arrest/conviction records will be considered.
• Work Authorization: U.S. work authorization without sponsorship is required. Eligibility is confirmed via E-Verify.