Director of Engineering

About the Role

ThoughtSpot is looking for a bold, technically fearless Director of Engineering to lead the Connected Insights track — the heart of ThoughtSpot's visualization, navigation, and frontend experience. This track spans three high-impact teams: FE Infra (module federation, client caching, build systems, performance, and developer platform tooling), Charts (the rendering engine for ThoughtSpot's visualization library, from core charting primitives to agent-driven chart configuration via the Answer API), and Liveboard (the primary interactive canvas in ThoughtSpot — architecture, presentation & interactivity, agent integration, and the AI-driven Liveboard experience).

This is a pivotal moment for the Connected Insights track. The frontend tech stack is deep and modern — React, GraphQL, module federation, complex state management — and the architecture is ready for a thoughtful rethink. We need someone who will question assumptions, challenge the status quo, and bring the curiosity and technical horsepower to redesign for the next era of ThoughtSpot's scale and AI-first product vision.

Equally important: the bug backlog is real. This leader must approach quality differently — not just as a process checkbox, but as an engineering culture and operational discipline that the team owns and takes pride in.

What You'll Do

Lead & Scale Three FE-Heavy Teams

• Own the engineering roadmap, headcount, and technical vision for FE Infra, Charts, and Liveboard — three teams with deep React and TypeScript DNA.
• Be an active presence in architecture forums and design reviews — not just signing off, but shaping technical direction hands-on.
• Build and develop engineering managers and senior ICs into the next generation of ThoughtSpot leaders.
• Hire relentlessly for intellectual curiosity, ownership mindset, and frontend depth.

Rethink the Architecture

• Audit the current architecture across module federation, client cache design, state management, rendering performance, and component system — and build a compelling vision for what comes next.
• Lead the move to a scalable, maintainable, and AI-ready frontend foundation that can power ThoughtSpot's Spotter, SpotterViz, and next-generation Liveboard experiences.
• Drive architectural decisions with first-principles thinking, not convention — question every assumption about how the frontend is structured today.
• Define and own the technical north star for frontend infrastructure, charting capabilities, and interactive Liveboard experiences.

Attack the Bug Backlog & Raise the Quality Bar

• Treat the bug backlog as a cultural and operational challenge, not just a ticket queue — instill a quality-first mindset across all three teams.
• Build operational systems (on-call hygiene, bug SLAs, regression prevention, automated testing frameworks) that structurally reduce bug accumulation.
• Define quality metrics that the teams live by — not just defect counts, but incident response time, customer-impacting regressions, and release reliability.
• Partner with customer success and support to close the loop between customer-facing bugs and engineering accountability.

Drive Cross-Functional Impact

• Work tightly with Product, Design, and the AI/Spotter teams to ensure the frontend platform keeps pace with an increasingly AI-native product surface.
• Represent the Connected Insights track in R&D staff reviews, quarterly planning, and executive discussions with clarity, data, and conviction.
• Be the connective tissue between what customers experience in the UI and what engineering builds — customer obsession must be visible in every architectural and process decision.

What You Have

Non-Negotiables

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5+ years in senior engineering leadership (Director level or above) managing multiple teams.
• Deep hands-on frontend engineering background — production React, GraphQL caching patterns, module federation, and the modern JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystem at scale.
• Proven track record of architectural reinvention — you've led a team through a meaningful frontend re-architecture, not just incremental improvement.
• Track record of raising quality standards in a team with a meaningful bug backlog — you know how to make this cultural, not just procedural.
• Excellent judgment in hiring, developing, and retaining senior IC and EM talent.
• Strong communication and cross-functional influence — comfortable presenting to executive leadership and working shoulder-to-shoulder with product and design.

Strongly Valued

• Experience building or scaling visualization/charting systems — chart rendering performance, SVG/Canvas tradeoffs, animation, responsive design at scale.
• Familiarity with AI-integrated product surfaces — building frontend systems that adapt to and expose LLM/NLP capabilities to end users.
• Experience in enterprise SaaS environments with multi-tenancy, embedded analytics (SDK, iframe, component embedding), and stringent performance/security requirements.
• Prior experience working in geographically distributed teams, particularly with India-based engineering centers.
• Exposure to backend services and data pipelines — enough to have informed conversations with backend counterparts and own end-to-end product quality.

In-Office at ThoughtSpot

Spotters are expected in-office 3+ days per week to be part of the energy of their local team. Momentum compounds when we're in the room together with faster decisions, sharper problem-solving, and the kind of peer learning that doesn't happen over a screen. Being in-office is our default way of working, with flexibility available where it's genuinely needed.

About ThoughtSpot

The world's most innovative companies turn to ThoughtSpot's AI-Powered Analytics to put data in the hands of everyone, from the C-suite to the frontline. With simple, natural language search and AI, anyone can ask questions, discover insights, and act with confidence. Unlike legacy tools that sacrifice performance for complexity, ThoughtSpot is intuitively designed for every business user while being built to handle the most complex, large-scale data, wherever it resides. This unique combination of speed and simplicity is why enterprise leaders trust ThoughtSpot to transform decision-making into a truly data-driven culture.

At ThoughtSpot, we're a curious, data-driven bunch. We believe the world works better when everyone has access to facts. That's why we build products that make asking and answering data questions as natural as having a conversation.

Mandatory And Required Skills For All ThoughtSpot Roles

Spotters are expected to demonstrate AI literacy and workflow integration to include to ability to:

• Comfortably and confidently integrate artificial intelligence into their daily workflow to increase productivity and quality.
• Hands-on experience to leverage AI tools (industry-leading LLMs) to increase productivity, automate routine tasks, and improve work quality.
• Speak to the experience of using AI for research, content creation, and document summarization while maintaining ownership of judgment and final decisions.
• Write effective prompts to get the most accurate and creative results from AI tools.

Spotters are expected to exemplify these key traits and AI Mindset:

• Curiosity in exploring new AI tools
• Adaptability to quickly learn and implement new, emerging AI technologies
• Critical thinking to know when to identify when AI should be used versus when human judgement is necessary

This combination of curiosity, adaptability, and discernment defines the AI mindset, and it's required for every role at ThoughtSpot.

AI Mindset for All Spotters

At ThoughtSpot, we believe AI is a necessary and essential part of how we work. Every role, across every team, is expected to be fluent and comfortable with using AI to do their best work.

All Spotters are expected to experiment with ThoughtSpot's AI tools (like Spotter and SpotterViz) and leading industry LLMs to streamline workflows, enhance output, and uncover new insights. Whether drafting content, analyzing data, or summarizing documents, AI is a daily partner. We value curiosity, openness to learning, and thoughtful application of AI to create real value. Training and resources are provided so every Spotter can confidently create with AI.

ThoughtSpot for All

At ThoughtSpot, diverse teams build better products. Complex data problems need many perspectives, not just one. We welcome different backgrounds, identities, and experiences, and we work to create a place where everyone can be themselves and do their best work. If this role excites you and you believe you're a strong match, we encourage you to apply.

What Makes ThoughtSpot a Great Place to Work

ThoughtSpot is the Agentic Analytics Platform that empowers every enterprise to transform insights into action, on a mission to make the world more fact driven. We hire people with unique identities, backgrounds, and perspectives - this balance-for-the-better philosophy is key to our success. When paired with our culture of Trust, Customer Obsession, Innovation and Intensity, ThoughtSpot cultivates a respectful culture that pushes norms to create world-class products. If you're excited by the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in the business and make your mark on a truly innovative company, we invite you to read more about our mission, and apply to the role that's right for you.