Engineering Director

The core responsibilities for the job include the following:

Software Development Fundamentals:

• Programming Proficiency: Strong foundation in at least one backend language (Python, Java, Go, or Node.js ) to review code, unblock teams, and make informed decisions.
• Code Review and Quality: Ability to evaluate PRs, enforce coding standards, and identify technical debt.
• Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC): Deep understanding of Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and release management processes.

SaaS Architecture and Platform Knowledge:

• Multi-Tenancy Architecture: Understanding of tenant isolation, shared vs. dedicated infrastructure, and data partitioning strategies.
• Microservices and Monolith: Trade-offs - When to decompose and how to manage service boundaries.
• SaaS Metrics: Understanding how technical decisions impact MRR, churn, uptime SLAs, and customer onboarding speed.
• API-First Thinking: RESTful APIs, webhooks, third-party integrations, and developer experience (DX).

Cloud and Infrastructure:

• Cloud Platforms: Working knowledge of AWS, Azure, or GCP (compute, storage, networking, cost management).
• CI/CD and DevOps: Familiarity with deployment pipelines, feature flags, and blue-green/canary deployments.
• Containerisation: Docker, Kubernetes, and orchestration strategies.
• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, CloudFormation (enough to guide decisions, not necessarily hands-on daily).

Data and Analytics:

• Database Management: Understanding of relational (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (DynamoDB, MongoDB, Redis) trade-offs.
• Data Pipelines and Analytics: Familiarity with ETL processes, data warehousing, and event-driven architectures.
• Product Analytics: Instrumentation, A/B testing frameworks, and usage tracking.

Security and Compliance:

• Application Security: OWASP top 10 secure coding practices and vulnerability management.
• Identity and Access: Management SSO, OAuth2 RBAC, and SCIM provisioning (critical in SaaS).
• Compliance: Frameworks SOC 2 GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 (depending on industry).
• Data Privacy: Encryption, data residency, and tenant data isolation.

Reliability and Scalability:

• Observability: Monitoring, alerting, distributed tracing (Datadog, New Relic, PagerDuty).
• Incident Management: On-call rotations, runbooks, post-mortems, and blameless culture.
• Performance and Scalability: Load testing, auto-scaling, and capacity planning.
• SLA/SLO Management: Defining and tracking uptime commitments (99.9%, 99.99%).

Delivery and Execution:

• Technical Roadmapping: Balancing feature development, tech debt, and platform investments.
• Estimation and Planning: Breaking epics into deliverables and managing cross-team dependencies.
• Build vs. Buy Decisions: Evaluating third-party tools, vendor management, and integration costs.
• Feature Flagging and Experimentation: Controlled rollouts, A/B testing, and progressive delivery.

People and Process:

• Technical Hiring: Designing system-design interviews, evaluating coding assessments, and calibrating levels.
• Architecture Reviews: Leading design reviews, ADRs, and RFCs.
• Tech Debt Management: Prioritising refactoring and communicating trade-offs to stakeholders.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Translating between product, design, and engineering in technical terms.