Director of Engineering

Director of Engineering

Location: Bay Area (Preferred) or New York (Secondary)

The Opportunity

We are conducting an AI-first engineering rebuild for a company with a massive existing audience of over 100M+ users. This is a “zero-to-one” build where you will have no legacy constraints and the freedom to define a modern stack from scratch. You aren’t joining to maintain; you are joining to build the future of the creator ecosystem.

The Scope

You will lead core engineering efforts to build and scale foundational services and platforms that power exceptional experiences for consumers and creators at massive scale. This includes:

• Building and evolving consumer-facing applications and core services with the potential to reach 100M+ people.
• Developing a privacy-safe data foundation that enables deep audience understanding and powers exceptional, personalized experiences — directly and in partnership with our partners.
• Owning the roadmap for AI across design, product, and engineering, including how we test and deploy new capabilities to improve and automate engineering, creative, and back-office workflows.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as a key engineering leader, establishing the technical culture, hiring bar, and organizational structure from the ground up.
• Partner closely with design and cross-functional leadership to drive rapid, AI-first product development.
• Own the technical roadmap for products and services used by millions, driving from concept to launch with a clear sense of urgency.
• Build and scale a world-class engineering organization — starting with a foundational squad and growing into a high-performing, multi-team org over time.
• Set the standard for how engineering is done here: AI tooling, coding agents, and modern development practices are the baseline, not the exception.
• Attract, develop, and retain top-tier engineering talent, creating an org that becomes known as a destination for the best builders in the industry.

Who You Are

• AI-Native: You are already “burning through tokens” and using AI coding agents daily to multiply your output.
• Battle-Tested: You have seen FAANG-level scale but retain the hands-on mindset of a startup founder.
• Product Owner: You have a track record of shipping consumer-facing products and services at scale (1M+ users).
• Leader: You can operate in high ambiguity and are known for attracting and developing top-tier talent.
  
  The target total compensation ranges from $275,000 to 350,000, an employee equity plan grant, bonus, plus comprehensive benefits.