Director of Engineering

The Judge Group; Pleasanton (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

The Judge Group seeks an Engineering Leader to oversee development, delivery, and continuous improvement of products and platforms. You will lead and mentor engineering teams, own end-to-end delivery, and champion AI-assisted development with modern LLM tools.

Ideal candidates combine deep technical expertise with strategic thinking and strong stakeholder communication across onshore and offshore locations. This role demands ownership and accountability in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering, including 6+ years in management.
• Strong architecture evaluation, code review, and decision-making skills.
• Experience delivering production-grade products and platforms.
• Hands-on AI-assisted development and LLM technologies expertise.
• Lead distributed, lean teams across multiple time zones.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow engineering teams, including senior engineers and technical leaders.
• Own end-to-end delivery of products and platform initiatives.
• Drive technical strategy, architecture decisions, and best practices.
• Champion AI-assisted workflows and LLM-assisted development.
• Communicate project status, risks, and recommendations to executives.
• Guide system design in complex environments prioritizing accuracy and reliability.
• Manage distributed teams across onshore and offshore locations.

Skills

Leadership

Software architecture

Engineering management

AI-assisted development

LLM technologies

Distributed teams

Strategic thinking

Stakeholder communication

Tools

GCP

Node.js/NestJS

PostgreSQL

Datadog

Job description

We are seeking a highly experienced and results-driven Engineering Leader to oversee the development, delivery, and continuous improvement of our products and platforms. The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise with strong people leadership, strategic thinking, and a passion for leveraging modern AI-assisted development practices to accelerate innovation and business outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow high-performing engineering teams, including senior engineers and technical leaders.
• Own the end-to-end delivery of critical products and platform initiatives, ensuring scalability, reliability, and business alignment.
• Drive technical strategy, architecture decisions, and engineering best practices across the organization.
• Champion AI-assisted and agentic development workflows, leveraging modern LLM tools to improve engineering productivity and efficiency.
• Manage distributed teams across onshore and offshore locations, ensuring seamless collaboration and execution.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and operational excellence while delivering results in a fast-paced environment.
• Communicate technical vision, project status, risks, and strategic recommendations to executive leadership and key stakeholders.
• Guide system design and architectural decisions for solutions operating in complex, real-world environments where accuracy, reliability, and timing are critical.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 6+ years in engineering management or leadership roles.
• Strong technical expertise with the ability to evaluate architecture, review code, and make informed engineering decisions.
• Proven experience owning and delivering production-grade products, platforms, or business-critical systems.
• Hands-on knowledge of AI-assisted software development, agentic workflows, and modern LLM technologies.
• Demonstrated success leading lean, high-impact teams and delivering exceptional results with limited resources.
• Experience managing geographically distributed engineering teams and coordinating across multiple time zones.
• Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to thrive in dynamic, high-growth environments with full ownership of outcomes.
• Experience in domains such as supply chain, logistics, warehouse management, inventory systems, IoT, sensor-driven platforms, food safety, traceability, or similar operationally intensive environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or scaling AI-driven engineering platforms or agentic software development lifecycles.
• Proven track record of hiring, coaching, and rapidly developing early-career engineers.
• Experience in private-equity-backed organizations or highly performance-focused operating environments.
• Familiarity with cloud-native technologies such as GCP, Node.js/NestJS, PostgreSQL, Datadog, or similar modern technology stacks.
• Understanding of food supply chain compliance, traceability regulations, and related industry standards.