Key Responsibilities :

Strategy & Technical Leadership :

- Build and lead a high-performing engineering pod responsible for critical platform capabilities.

- Define technical strategy, architectural patterns, coding standards, and system design principles aligned with business OKRs.

- Drive technical roadmapping and break down complex requirements into well-scoped sprints.

- Ensure systems are designed for reliability, scalability, and performance with strong observability practices.

Delivery & Execution :

- Own quarterly OKRs and feature delivery timelines; maintain visibility into team velocity, blockers, and progress.

- Identify and mitigate technical risks early; communicate dependencies and trade-offs proactively.

- Define sprint cadence, conduct planning and retrospectives, and drive continuous process improvement.

- Ensure smooth integration with DevOps, QA, and deployment pipelines; own quality gates for releases.

Team Building & People Leadership :

- Hire, onboard, and retain a high-performing engineering team; conduct technical interviews.

- Lead team rituals : sprint planning, code reviews, retrospectives, and design reviews.

- Coach engineers on technical growth, career development, and leadership potential.

- Conduct regular 1-on-1s, provide feedback, and foster a culture of ownership and learning.

Cross-Functional Collaboration :

- Partner with Product, Design, QA, DevOps, and other engineering pods on priorities and technical constraints.

- Communicate proactively on technical decisions, blockers, and resource needs.

- Advocate for engineering needs while balancing business priorities and delivery timelines.

Technical Contribution :

- Write and review production code as appropriate; maintain technical credibility.

- Unblock engineers on debugging, architecture decisions, and technical problem-solving.

- Lead by example in code quality and operational excellence.

Requirements :

Experience & Technical Expertise :

- 6+ years of experience in software engineering, with 3+ years in engineering leadership.

- Proven track record leading engineering teams in high-scale SaaS or enterprise software environments.

- Strong foundation in backend systems : database design, API architecture, distributed systems, and scalability.

- Hands-on experience with modern tech stacks (Python, Java, Go, Ruby); ability to code-review and mentor across languages.

- Deep understanding of testing practices : unit, integration, end-to-end, and performance testing.

- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, test automation, and production observability.

- Demonstrated experience redesigning engineering workflows using AI agents and verification controls, with measured productivity gains.

Leadership & Collaboration :

- Proven ability to build, scale, and retain high-performing engineering teams.

- Strong project management skills : breaking down requirements, estimating effort, managing multiple initiatives.

- Excellent communication across technical and non-technical audiences.

- Experience defining technical strategy and making architectural decisions with pragmatism and long-term thinking.

- Proven cross-functional collaboration with Product, Design, QA, and DevOps teams.

Soft Skills & Mindset :

- Ownership mindset : Take end-to-end accountability for pod outcomes and proactively solve problems.

- Customer-centric thinking : Understand how your pod's work impacts customer experience and business goals.

- Adaptability : Comfortable in fast-growing startup environments; flexible and iterative approach to processes.

- Systems thinking : Aware of how your pod connects to the broader platform and cross-team impacts.

- Relentless commitment to quality and technical excellence.