Director, Engineering Management

Job ID: 26DIRENG501
Department: Engineering
Reports To: Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Collaborators: Product Management, Project Management, Client Stakeholders
Type: Fully Remote
Location: Accepting candidates residing in the United States or Europe only
Core Hour Overlap: Required daily alignment to ensure strong morning overlap with European engineering teams (e.g., US Eastern/Central mornings or European late afternoons/evenings).
Travel Requirements: Quarterly executive meetings in the United States; final interview stage conducted in person within the United States.

ROLE OVERVIEW

We are seeking a Director, Engineering Management to serve as our primary software engineering lead. This role bridges high-level technical strategy with disciplined execution, directly overseeing a distributed team of 15+ senior engineers across North America and Europe.

Reporting directly to the CEO and partnering with Product and Project Management, you will establish modern engineering standards, guide architectural decisions, ensure high-fidelity delivery, and foster a culture of accountability and transparency.

The ideal candidate brings strong architectural acumen alongside pragmatic people management. While this is not a day-to-day coding position, it demands recent, hands-on architectural experience with modern web, cloud, and mobile architectures. You must be comfortable conducting code reviews, establishing shared component libraries for multi-product scalability, and maintaining security and compliance as core tenets of system design.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Engineering Leadership & Delivery

Lead, mentor, and scale a distributed organization of 15+ senior engineers, setting performance benchmarks, managing talent growth, and handling resource planning and escalations.
Establish clear key performance indicators (KPIs) focused on sprint velocity, deployment predictability, software stability, and release quality.
Eliminate 'black box' engineering practices by standardizing internal documentation, technical design reviews, and cross-team knowledge sharing.
Oversee team estimation processes to ensure predictable scoping that incorporates automated testing and unit coverage as mandatory baseline standards.

System Architecture & Technical Rigor

Own high-level architectural decisions, system design, and technical roadmaps aligned with business objectives.
Drive modular architecture and shared component libraries to optimize code reuse, consistency, and performance across all platforms.
Validate technical proposals, data models, and architectural patterns prior to sprint implementation.
Actively participate in high-stakes code reviews to enforce security, performance, and maintainability standards.

Security & Regulatory Compliance

Ensure absolute adherence to US Healthcare law, including HIPAA, alongside strict compliance with internal company operating rules and all client-specific compliance policies.
Champion a security-first engineering mindset across the organization, ensuring strict adherence to secure software development lifecycles (SDLC) and secure Protected Health Information (PHI) handling.
Identify, audit, and systematically remediate technical debt and infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Strategic Alignment & Stakeholder Engagement

Partner closely with Product and Project Management to translate commercial roadmaps into reliable engineering releases.
Serve as the principal technical voice for executive stakeholders and client leadership, effectively communicating complex technical strategies, architectures, and tradeoffs.
Partner with the CEO to set company-wide technical strategy, technology stack evaluations, and organizational scaling plans

CANDIDATE PROFILE & REQUIREMENTS

Required Experience

8–12+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including 3+ years in a dedicated engineering management or technical leadership role (Director, Head of Engineering, or Senior Engineering Manager).
Demonstrated success directly managing distributed development teams of 10–15+ engineers across international time zones (North America and Europe).
Proven background working within either a high-growth product company or a high-caliber custom enterprise software consultancy
Prior experience establishing shared component frameworks, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, and engineering-wide quality metrics.

Technical Proficiencies

Core Languages: Strong architectural mastery of PHP (Required), paired with proficiency or exposure to Python and/or .NET.
Frontend Frameworks: Strong familiarity with modern JavaScript architectures, specifically React or Angular.
Databases: Advanced experience designing and optimizing relational database systems (PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, or MySQL).
Cloud & Infrastructure: Hands-on architectural experience with AWS or Azure, containerization, and modern DevOps/Git workflows.
Security & Compliance: Working knowledge of secure coding frameworks (OWASP) and regulatory standards; direct experience with HIPAA and PHI data management is strongly preferred.

Leadership & Communication

Transparent & Decisive: Exceptional written and verbal English communication skills, capable of providing candid feedback, resolving blockers, and articulating technical risk to non-technical partners.
Operational Discipline: Ability to implement centralized standards without stifling developer autonomy.
Client-Facing Presence: Poise and credibility when presenting architecture and technical roadmaps to enterprise client executives.

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field (or equivalent).

Work Environment, Schedule & Travel

Remote Footprint: Candidates must be legally authorized to work and reside in either the United States or Europe.
Core Hours: Must align core daily working hours to provide solid morning overlap with our European engineering teams.
Executive Travel: Following onboarding, the Director will travel to the United States on a quarterly basis for executive strategy sessions, engineering offsites, and roadmapping summits.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Matching candidates will be invited to advance through SD’s structured recruitment steps:

1 HR Interview: Initial alignment on background, leadership philosophy, compensation, and operational logistics.
2 Technical Interview & Proficiency Testing: In-depth evaluation of architectural design capabilities, system scalability, and technical problem-solving proficiency.
3 Management & Developer Team Interview: Peer and team assessment focusing on day-to-day team dynamics, code review standards, and cross-functional collaboration with Product and Project Management.
4 Corporate Interview (Final Round - In Person, USA): Final strategic evaluation with executive leadership will be scheduled at an agreed-upon location on-site in the United States (all travel and accommodation expenses covered).