Director of Software Engineering (Chicago)

Qorali are working in partnership with a leading organization seeking an accomplished Director of Software Engineering to lead their high‑performing Java engineering team and drive the delivery of large‑scale, distributed compute platforms. This role is ideal for a senior technology leader with deep hands‑on expertise in Java, Kafka, and modern event‑driven architectures.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide strategic and technical leadership to a team of experienced senior Java engineers.
• Architect, design, and oversee the delivery of high‑throughput, event‑driven systems and distributed compute platforms.
• Drive engineering excellence across coding standards, design patterns, testing practices, and CI/CD automation.
• Partner with Product, Architecture, and Infrastructure teams to define long‑term technology roadmaps.
• Ensure systems are scalable, resilient, and capable of supporting mission‑critical workloads.
• Mentor engineering managers and senior developers, fostering a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Oversee technical governance, performance optimization, and production reliability across all services.

Required Experience

• Proven leadership experience managing teams of expert‑level Java engineers.
• Deep technical background in Java 8+, JVM performance tuning, and distributed systems.
• Hands‑on experience designing and delivering Kafka‑based event streaming and large‑scale compute pipelines.
• Strong understanding of microservices, asynchronous messaging, and cloud‑native architectures.
• Demonstrated success leading engineering organizations in high‑growth or enterprise environments.