Director of Engineering - Irvine, CA

LendAPI is a leading fintech SaaS provider, delivering innovative lending solutions that empower financial institutions to streamline their processes, enhance customer experiences, and drive growth. Clients trust our cutting-edge platform to transform the way they offer financial services, and we are looking for a results-driven Sales Executive to help us expand our footprint in the market.

About the Role:

We are seeking a highly skilled, hands-on Director/VP of Engineering to lead our technical team and drive the development of scalable, high-performance fintech SaaS applications. The ideal candidate has extensive experience with Django, FastAPI, and modern DevOps practices, ensuring the reliability, security, and scalability of our platform. This role requires a strong leader who can collaborate with cross-functional teams, mentor engineers, and implement best practices in software development and infrastructure management.

What You Will Do:

Key Responsibilities:

Lead and manage the engineering team, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

Architect, design, and oversee the development of scalable web applications using Django or FastAPI.

Ensure system reliability, performance, and security by implementing best DevOps practices.

Drive the adoption of CI/CD, containerization, and cloud-native solutions.

Collaborate with product management, design, clients and other stakeholders to align technical strategies with business objectives.

Establish coding standards, best practices, and maintain a high-quality development process.

Manage technical roadmaps, project timelines, and resource allocation.

Mentor and grow a high-performing engineering team through hiring, training, and career development.

Monitor system performance, optimize infrastructure, and troubleshoot complex technical challenges.

Stay up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends to drive innovation.

This is a hands on role. Lead by example, actively contributing to system architecture, developing proofs of concept to validate ideas, conducting peer code reviews, and supporting production systems.

About You:

Required Qualifications:

8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3+ years in a leadership role.

Proven expertise in Django and FastAPI, with hands‑on experience building and scaling web applications.

Experience with front‑end frameworks/libraries such as React, Angular.

Strong background in DevOps, including AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines.

Deep understanding of system architecture, microservices, and distributed systems.

Experience working in high‑scale environments handling millions of requests, with a proven track record of building applications that scale to 3000 requests per second.

Strong knowledge of database design and optimization (PostgreSQL, Redis, or similar).

Excellent problem‑solving skills and the ability to make data‑driven decisions.

Effective leadership and communication skills, with a track record of mentoring engineers.

Bachelor or above in computer science or related field.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience with event‑driven architectures and message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar).

Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, etc.).

Previous experience in a fast‑paced startup environment.

Fintech industry experience preferred.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience with event‑driven architectures and message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar).

Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, etc.).

Previous experience in a fast‑paced startup environment.

Fintech industry experience preferred.

Why Join Us?

• Competitive salary, equity options and health insurance.
• A dynamic, collaborative, and innovative work culture.
• Opportunities to shape the technological direction of a fast‑growing fintech startup.
• Flexible work environment with remote options.
• Work alongside a talented team in a collaborative and innovative environment.

LendAPI is an equal‑opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.