Director, Engineering Operations & Strategy

Description

The company builds AI that makes the physical world respond to people, a model it calls the Recognition Economy, where repetitive tasks fade and being recognized opens doors, comfort, and a sense of belonging.

Current work ranges from turning parking into a drive-in, drive-out experience for millions of members to bringing the same intelligence into retail and hospitality.

The company is at a hyper-growth stage. You would join a team of product leaders and engineers working across parking, mobility, and real estate.

This role sets technology strategy, operational leadership, and strategic problem-solving for the engineering organization. You will work with high autonomy, manage a multi-million dollar engineering budget, and partner with senior leaders on M&A due diligence and high-stakes operational decisions. The role suits someone who is comfortable with uncertainty and takes full ownership of outcomes.

The company wants an inclusive culture where everyone can contribute and the strongest idea wins. You will help build that culture as the organization grows.

Responsibilities

• Standardize shared engineering processes such as hiring, onboarding, and training so practices stay consistent as the organization grows.
• Take complex, multi-layered operational problems and reduce them to simple actions you can take without waiting for direction from above.
• Manage a P&L budget of $50M to $100M+, allocating resources to match high-level corporate goals.
• Forecast hardware and service spend for key vendors such as AWS and Twilio, track spend trends, and flag risks or opportunities early.
• Lead engineering strategy on emerging decisions such as M&A due diligence and major vendor migrations, working closely with senior executives.
• Build alignment among top leadership on multi-stakeholder decisions for complex or high-risk initiatives.
• Keep teams unblocked and moving quickly, acting on incomplete information when the direction is right.
• Use curiosity and established methods to break down cross-functional silos, question the status quo, and align teams.
• Forecast operational trends and recommend strategy that pushes for proactive change rather than routine upkeep.
• Oversee all engineering vendor management, including contract negotiation and renewals, holding vendors accountable for performance, and handling day-to-day relationships.

Requirements

• 6+ years in high-intensity, demanding environments and 2+ years of hands-on engineering work in software or a similar engineering role.
• A record of grinding through difficult problems until they are done, going through obstacles rather than around them. Backgrounds such as top-tier consulting, investment banking, or strategic finance often build this, but the trait matters more than the background: a track record of outworking a problem because the outcome matters to you.
• A proven record of leading a strategic function with real autonomy, managing resources, and owning organizational outcomes.
• Strong ability to earn the trust of technical teams and influence them without formal authority.
• Experience owning meaningful budget or resource decisions in a high-growth or complex organization, favoring action over waiting for perfect information.
• A track record of making sound calls in fast-moving, highly ambiguous settings without complete data.
• Ability to turn complex operational or technical topics into clear rationale for senior and C-level stakeholders.
• Skill at converting high-level business goals into concrete execution plans that account for broad organizational impact.
• Demonstrated skill using AI tools and frameworks to improve technology operations, technical evaluations, and cross-functional workflows.
• A plus: MBA from a top-tier business program.
• A plus: engineering degree.
• A plus: experience in high-growth technology scale-ups or pre-IPO environments.
• A plus: direct involvement in M&A technology due diligence, corporate restructuring, or integration strategy.
• A plus: experience with modern engineering workflows, cloud platforms such as AWS, or AI tooling.

Conditions

This is an office-first role: you must be on-site at least four days a week to support in-person collaboration.

The anticipated base salary is $220,000 USD to $260,000 USD per year.

Final base pay depends on factors such as qualifications, years of relevant experience, distinctive skills, education, certifications or licenses, and where you live or work.

The company may use an automated employment decision tool to assess your application against the listed qualifications, keeps related personal data only as long as reasonably needed for that use, and adds it to your employee records if you are hired.

Benefits

• Healthcare benefits.
• A 401(k) plan.
• Short-term and long-term disability coverage and basic life insurance.
• A stock option plan and bonus plans.
• Additional benefits beyond these.