Engineering Leader

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Lead, mentor, and expand a high-performing group of engineers and scientists; initially as a direct manager, with the potential to oversee other managers as the organization progresses.

• Take charge of delivering agentic AI systems from vague customer needs through prototyping, production deployment, evaluation, and iterative improvement.

• Remain technically engaged through architecture assessments, make-or-buy decisions, agentic workflow design, evaluation strategies, and urgent resolution of customer-critical issues.

• Collaborate with the Director of Product, Director of UX, and customer-facing teams to convert customer workflows into precise technical roadmaps.

• Establish operational mechanisms that enable the team to operate swiftly without unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles: clear priorities, defined ownership, rapid feedback loops, and disciplined execution.

• Elevate the engineering standards for reliability, observability, security, compliance, and deployment quality in high-stakes enterprise settings.

• Attract, nurture, and retain exceptional technical talent; foster a culture where engineers and scientists can excel in their work.

• Exemplify RD’s principles: consistently delight customers, eliminate bottlenecks, engage in constructive disagreement, take responsibility for every challenge, prototype swiftly, and remain at the forefront of innovation.

⛳️ Requirements

• Extensive experience in leading engineering teams that deliver production software in complex and ambiguous settings.

• Proven ability to manage proficient technical individual contributors, including engineers and/or applied scientists.

• Practical experience in developing modern AI systems, including agents, RAG, tool utilization, workflow orchestration, evaluations, LLM applications, or similar technologies.

• Strong product and customer insight: capable of discerning what customers genuinely need, beyond their initial requests.

• Enterprise-level engineering instincts, including security considerations, data boundaries, observability, deployment practices, and operational reliability.

• Entrepreneurial mindset: high agency, low ego, proactive approach, comfort with uncertainty, and readiness to tackle the most pressing issues.

• Effective communication and sound judgment under pressure; able to engage in challenging discussions, align swiftly, and execute efficiently.

🏝️ Benefits

• Lead, coach, and scale a high-performing team of engineers and scientists.

• Own delivery of agentic AI systems from ambiguous customer needs through prototype, production deployment, evaluation, and iteration.

• Stay technically hands-on through architecture reviews, build/buy decisions, agentic workflow design, evaluation strategy, and urgent customer-critical problem solving.

• Partner with the Director of Product, Director of UX, and customer-facing teams to translate customer workflows into clear technical roadmaps.

• Build operating mechanisms that help the team move fast without unnecessary process: crisp priorities, clear ownership, fast feedback loops, and disciplined execution.

• Raise the engineering bar for reliability, observability, security, compliance, and deployment quality in high-consequence enterprise environments.

• Recruit, develop, and retain exceptional technical talent; create a culture where engineers and scientists do their best work.

• Model RD’s tenets: continuously delight customers, remove bottlenecks, disagree and commit, take ownership of every problem, prototype rapidly, and stay at the leading edge.