Director of Engineering

The Onset Group; Sydney; On-site; AUD 260,000 - 340,000; Full time

Job summary

The Onset Group is partnering with a leading Australian technology business to appoint a Head of Engineering / Distinguished Engineer to shape a 100+ person engineering organisation in an AI-first world. This is not a traditional people-management role; it's about technical credibility, strategic thinking, and guiding major bets on how software will be built over the next five years.

You will define internal AI infrastructure and developer platforms, enable hundreds of engineers to build better

Qualifications

• Exceptional CS fundamentals with a focus on distributed systems and scalable architecture.
• Built AI/ML infrastructure, developer platforms or engineering productivity tools at scale.
• Led senior engineers and potential direct reports across large teams.
• Experience shaping architecture and strategy in fast‑moving product environments.

Responsibilities

• Define engineering strategy and architecture for AI infrastructure and platforms.
• Lead Senior Engineering Managers, Directors or equivalent, shaping technical direction.
• Scale internal tooling to enable hundreds of engineers to ship faster.
• Collaborate with executives on bets about AI-native software and platform investments.

Skills

Distributed systems

AI/ML infrastructure

Developer platforms

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP)

Leadership of engineers

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

APIs

Job description

Head of Engineering / Distinguished Engineer AI Infrastructure | Distributed Systems | Platform Engineering | Sydney.

We're partnering with one of Australia's most successful global technology businesses to find an exceptional Head of Engineering / Distinguished Engineer to help define what a 100+ person engineering organisation looks like in an AI-first world. This isn't a traditional Head of Engineering role focused on process, people management and delivery. We're looking for someone with serious technical credibility; an engineer at heart who can think three steps ahead, challenge conventional thinking and help make some big bets about how software will be built over the next five years.

The engineering agenda is ambitious. You'll help build the internal AI infrastructure and developer platforms that enable hundreds of engineers to build better software faster; redesign how work is specced, built, tested and reviewed using AI; open a major product platform to APIs, MCP and autonomous agents; evolve large-scale distributed infrastructure across regions and clouds; and influence major investments across search, data, web, mobile and new greenfield products. You won't personally architect everything, but when the hardest technical problems in the company are being debated, you should be one of the people everyone wants in the room.

We're looking for someone who combines Distinguished Engineer-level technical depth with genuine organisational leadership. You may already be a VP/Head/Director of Engineering who has refused to become disconnected from technology, or a Distinguished/Principal Engineer who has increasingly found themselves leading teams, managers and engineering strategy. Either way, you'll have worked in high-performance product environments, be comfortable challenging ambitious founders and executives, and understand that great engineering is ultimately about creating better products and commercial outcomes.

We'd particularly love to hear from people who have:

• Exceptional Computer Science fundamentals, particularly distributed systems, infrastructure and scalable architecture.
• Built AI/ML infrastructure, developer platforms, internal tooling or engineering productivity platforms at meaningful scale.
• Deep thinking around LLMs, agents, MCP, model orchestration, evals, context engineering and the AI-native SDLC.
• Led Senior Engineering Managers, Directors or other senior technical leaders - ideally influencing organisations of 100+ engineers.
• Built complex cloud platforms across AWS/GCP, Kubernetes, multi-region or multi-cloud environments.
• Operated inside an ambitious startup, scale-up or world-class product engineering organisation where speed and technical excellence both matter.
• The judgement to know what to build, what to buy, what to kill and what everyone else will need in three years' time.