Director of Software Engineering

Karat; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 6,000,000 - 12,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Karat is seeking a Director of Engineering in Bengaluru to lead and grow the India-based engineering organization. You will report to the VP of Engineering and work with teams in the United States to deliver reliable software products.

You will start hands-on and eventually delegate product and feature ownership, building strong local leadership and aligning India-based teams with global priorities. The role requires overlap with US business hours.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering with 5+ years in management.
• Shipping and operating customer-facing hosted SaaS products in production.
• End-to-end SDLC experience for customer-facing products.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and development of enterprise workflows and self-serve hubs (HM Experience App, Recruiter Hub, ATS integrations, post-interview portals).
• Enhance delivery tooling and cost-saving initiatives (messaging/notifications, payments).
• Identify and apply emerging technologies, including AI-assisted workflows, to advance Karat’s platform.
• Develop senior technical talent and engineering managers, delegating meaningful ownership.
• Build effective working relationships across India and global teams.

Skills

Engineering leadership

People management

AI/ML knowledge

Distributed teams coordination

English communication

Job description

Our Engineering team builds the infrastructure, reporting, and data products that turn Karat’s unique interview and performance data into meaningful insights. We partner across Product, Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, and the business to create a reliable data foundation and to improve how Karat understands, uses, and delivers data.

What you will do

As Director of Engineering, India, you will lead and grow Karat’s India-based engineering organization. You will report to the Vice President of Engineering and work closely with engineering leaders and teams in the United States.

You will own engineering delivery for multiple product areas and features, from technical approach through dependable launch and ongoing operation. You start as a hands-on leader while you grow the India engineering team so that you can delegate product and feature ownership over time. You will also be a cross-company leader and resource for India-based employees and their global counterparts, helping teams build strong working relationships, navigate local needs, and operate effectively as one company.

This position requires a schedule that overlaps with U.S. business hours.

• Lead the design and development of intuitive enterprise workflows and self-serve hubs that streamline the hiring process. Key initiatives include the HM Experience App, Recruiter Hub, ATS integrations, active candidate funnel management, and post-interview decisioning portals.
• Enhance delivery operations tooling, cost-saving initiatives (e.g., messaging and notifications infrastructure), and payment operations.
• Identify and apply emerging technologies, including AI-assisted workflows, to advance Karat’s interviewing platform and technical-assessment capabilities.
• Develop senior technical talent and engineering managers, build strong local leadership, and delegate meaningful product and feature ownership across teams.
• Build effective working relationships across India and global teams, helping India-based employees and their counterparts operate smoothly as one company.

The experience you will bring:

Technical foundation and product delivery

• 10+ years of professional software-engineering experience with 5+ as a manager
• Demonstrated experience shipping and operating customer-facing, hosted SaaS software products in production. This is a required qualification.
• Strong technical depth and experience in AI-driven technologies, with the ability to contribute credibly to architecture, design reviews, code reviews, and consequential technical tradeoffs.
• Experience leading the end-to-end software development lifecycle for customer-facing products, from product planning and technical design through launch, operation, and iterative improvement.

Engineering leadership and execution

• Experience hiring, coaching, and performance-managing engineers; experience managing engineering managers is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to develop senior engineering leaders and delegate meaningful product, technical, and people-leadership responsibilities.
• A track record of improving engineering culture, development processes, and technical systems while balancing customer delivery, platform health, reliability, security, and technical debt.

Global collaboration and India leadership

• Experience working effectively across geographically distributed teams, ideally with significant collaboration between India and U.S.-based engineering organizations.
• Excellent written and verbal English communication skills, with the judgment and empathy needed to build trust across functions, teams, and time zones.
• The ability to operate as a trusted local leader while aligning India-based teams and employees with global company priorities.

This position is only available to candidates residing in Bengaluru (formerly known as Bangalore). While our team operates 100% remotely, we are currently limiting hiring to this specific location. We will not consider applications from other cities in India at this time.

Applicants, please note: we will not consider submissions that are not 100% in English.