Director Software Engineering - Continuous Delivery

Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform company, led by technologist and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal (founder of AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco for $3.7B). Harness has raised approximately $570M in funding and is valued at $5.5B, backed by leading investors including Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, Citi Ventures, and more. As AI accelerates code creation, the real bottleneck has shifted to everything after the code - testing, deployments, application security, reliability, compliance, and cost optimization. Harness brings AI and automation to this “outer loop,” helping teams ship software faster while maintaining security and governance throughout the entire software delivery lifecycle.

Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the Harness Platform applies deep context and intelligent automation across the software delivery lifecycle with governance and policy-driven controls embedded throughout the platform. 

Over the past year, Harness powered over 185M deployments, 82M builds, 18T flag evaluations, 8M security scans, 9.1B optimized tests, 3T protected API calls, and helped manage $2.8B in cloud spend - enabling customers like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels to accelerate releases by up to 75%, reduce cloud costs by up to 60%, and achieve 10x DevOps efficiency. 

With a global team across 26 offices and 27 countries, Harness is shaping the future of AI software delivery - and we’re looking for exceptional talent to help us move even faster.

Position Summary 

Join Harness, a high-growth startup transforming how software is delivered. Our mission is to help 30 million developers ship code faster, more securely, and with greater reliability-fueling innovation and improving the developer experience. Backed by $425M in funding and led by AppDynamics founder Jyoti Bansal, we’re recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for DevOps Platforms and consistently ranked on Glassdoor, Forbes, Inc., and LinkedIn’s top workplace lists.

Our CD platform is the fastest and most intelligent on the market-enabling customers to deploy with confidence across any infrastructure. This is your chance to drive innovation in a product line that’s reshaping how modern engineering teams deliver software.

We’re looking for a Director of Engineering to lead our CD business. This is a hands-on, high-impact leadership role combining product ownership, architectural oversight, and close customer collaboration. You'll define the long-term vision, deliver against strategic outcomes, and orchestrate engineering excellence across a globally distributed team.

About the role

As the Director of Engineering for Continuous Delivery, you'll own the vision, execution, and technical direction of the flagship product. You’ll split your time between technology leadership (40%), product and roadmap ownership (30%), and communication and collaboration (30%)-interfacing across executive leadership, customers, and cross-functional teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the long-term vision and strategy for Harness CD, grounded in market trends and customer value.
• Make high-impact decisions in ambiguous, cross-functional environments that shape company direction.
• Partner directly with customers to inform roadmap priorities, manage escalations, and ensure adoption success.
• Lead delivery of cutting-edge CD features, including Agent deploys, GitOps Deploys, and Deployments to different infrastructures.
• Ensure deep integration of Harness CD across the SDLC, supporting any SCM, language, or platform.
• Hire, grow, and lead globally distributed engineering teams; foster a high-performance, feedback-driven culture.
• Provide hands-on architectural leadership in areas like Kubernetes, Serverless, Azure, and AWS.
• Modernize backend systems with a focus on distributed systems, Go, and GCP.
• Continuously improve internal processes, cross-team collaboration, and technical scalability across the org.

About you

We’re looking for a seasoned technology leader with a startup mindset and deep technical roots-someone who approaches challenges like a product engineer and thrives in complexity.

Required Experience & Qualifications:

• 10+ years of backend software development experience; 6+ years leading high-performing engineering or DevOps teams.
• Proven success building and scaling orgs in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Strong track record in the software delivery/lifecycle domain with hands-on architectural and design leadership.
• Expertise in building high-throughput platforms, scalable APIs, and distributed systems.
• Familiarity with GCP, Go, and Kubernetes; strong grasp of the Google cloud-native ecosystem.
• Clear communicator and collaborator across teams, executives, and customers.
• Organized, action-oriented leader who can navigate complexity while driving results and team health.
• BS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Attributes:

• Domain knowledge in CD or software delivery platforms.
• Experience leading incident management, including drafting external-facing RCAs.
• Reputation for work ethic, accountability, and high standards.
• Advanced degree or equivalent practical experience.

Harness in the news:

• Accelerating Our Mission to Bring AI to Everything After Code
• Goldman Sachs leads investment in software delivery startup Harness at $5.5 billion valuation
• How Harness runs 16 “startups within a startup” at scale | Jyoti Bansal
• Harness Research Shows AI Visibility Crisis Fueling Security Nightmare
• Harness has been named to the Inc. Power Partner list for software delivery success

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

At Harness, we care about your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. For additional information on this topic, you can visit our privacy Portal: https://harness-privacy.relyance.ai/

Note on Fraudulent Recruiting/Offers

We have become aware that there may be fraudulent recruiting attempts being made by people posing as representatives of Harness. These scams may involve fake job postings, unsolicited emails, or messages claiming to be from our recruiters or hiring managers. 

Please note, we do not ask for sensitive or financial information via chat, text, or social media, and any email communications will come from the domain @harness.io. Additionally, Harness will never ask for any payment, fee to be paid, or purchases to be made by a job applicant. All applicants are encouraged to apply directly to our open jobs via our website. Interviews are generally conducted via Zoom video conference unless the candidate requests other accommodations.

If you believe that you have been the target of an interview/offer scam by someone posing as a representative of Harness, please do not provide any personal or financial information and contact us immediately at  [email protected]. You can also find additional information about this type of scam and report any fraudulent employment offers via the Federal Trade Commission’s website (https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams), or you can contact your local law enforcement agency.