Director of Engineering

Alldus; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Alldus seeks a hands-on Director of Engineering to anchor our engineering organization as we scale. You will drive architecture decisions, manage delivery like a program, and apply AI fluency to move fast while meeting federal compliance needs.

You'll report to the CEO and collaborate with the VP of Product to align engineering with dual-use customer requirements and enterprise sales cycles.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering, data architecture or engineering management.
• Proven track record leading data-scale architecture for dual-use or regulated environments.
• Strong program and delivery management with timelines and budgets.

Responsibilities

• Define long-term data architecture and platform strategy for scalable threat intelligence pipelines.
• Lead engineering delivery with disciplined program management and visible risk tracking.
• Set engineering standards for code quality, testing, CI/CD, security, and documentation.
• Hire, coach, and grow a high-velocity engineering team in a rapidly scaling company.
• Champion AI tooling adoption and ensure safe, compliant use of AI with federal customers.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Data architecture

Program delivery

AI engineering fluency

Hiring & mentoring

Security-first mindset

Tools

CI/CD tooling

Cloud platforms

Security tooling

Job description

We develop AI-driven physical threat intelligence software used by large enterprises and U.S. federal and defense agencies. Our product suite gives security, risk, and operations teams the tools to spot and respond to real-world threats faster than traditional intelligence platforms allow. As a dual-use company, we build a single core technology that serves both Fortune 500 security teams and government customers, which means our engineering organization has to operate at a high standard of commercial speed and federal-grade discipline simultaneously. We're a Series A company in a period of rapid growth, and this role will be central to establishing engineering not just as a function, but as a true discipline within the company.

About the Role

We're looking for a hands-on Director of Engineering to serve as the technical foundation of our engineering organization. This position blends individual contribution with leadership: you'll be hands-on enough to drive meaningful architecture decisions, organized enough to manage delivery like a well-run program, and versed enough in current AI tools to help the team build with AI — not just build AI products.

You’ll report directly to the CEO and be among the most senior technical leaders guiding how we scales its engineering function. You’ll collaborate closely with our VP of Product, who owns the delivery cadence, roadmap prioritization framework, and the broader product/engineering operating model supporting our dual-use strategy.

Responsibilities

Data Architecture & Platform Strategy

• Define the long-term data architecture strategy for our threat intelligence pipelines, making sure systems scale smoothly as data volume, data variety, customer base, and federal compliance demands increase.
• Guide platform-level decisions — storage, pipelines, data modeling, warehousing, and ML/AI operations — balancing speed and cost against the realities of serving both commercial and federal clients (data segregation, CUI handling, and FedRAMP/CMMC-adjacent requirements).
• Collaborate with Product and GRC teams on data governance, lineage, and security-by-design principles as the platform matures.

Program & Delivery Management

• Bring disciplined program management practices to engineering delivery — roadmap and technical debt planning, sprint cadence, dependency tracking, velocity tracking, and risk visibility — without burying the team in unnecessary process.
• Take ownership of predictability, so leadership and the board can rely on engineering's commitments and timelines.
• Lead cross-functional planning with Product and GTM teams to keep engineering output aligned with enterprise and federal sales cycles.

Software Engineering Leadership

• Remain technically engaged where it counts — reviewing code, shaping architecture, and solving hard technical problems, not just reporting on status.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards across code quality, testing, CI/CD, security, and documentation.
• Guide decisions on system architecture, technology stack direction, and technical debt priorities.
• Manage, coach, and develop a team of engineers, handling hiring, performance management, and career growth.
• Cultivate a strong engineering culture during a period of fast growth — grounded in clear ownership, trust, and low ego.
• Serve as the bridge between individual engineers and company leadership, translating technical detail into business context and back again.

AI Operations & Applied AI Fluency

• Bring genuine, everyday fluency with modern AI development practices — AI coding assistants, agentic tools, and LLM-based systems as a standard part of how the team works, not a side experiment.
• Spot where AI can safely speed up engineering work (code generation, testing, internal tools) and where it introduces risks that need safeguards, particularly given our federal customer base.
• Help shape how our products use AI internally — including model selection, evaluation, reliability, and cost tradeoffs — working closely with product and applied data science partners.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of progressively responsible experience across software engineering, data architecture, and engineering management, including at least 3 years in a formal people-leadership role (Engineering Manager, Director, or similar).
• A track record of owning data architecture decisions at scale — designing infrastructure, not just working within it.
• Strong instincts for program and delivery management, comfortable owning timelines, estimating effort, and coordinating across engineering and product leadership.
• A genuine builder's background, with enough recent hands-on engineering work to earn technical credibility and make sound architectural and development calls.
• A demonstrated ability to hire, manage, and grow engineers, with experience building effective, high-velocity teams.
• Daily, hands-on fluency with modern AI tools and a clear point of view on how AI is reshaping engineering org design, hiring, and velocity.
• A security-first mindset suited to a dual-use environment, along with willingness to learn the federal compliance landscape (FedRAMP, CMMC, CUI handling) as it relates to engineering.
• Startup experience, ideally at the Series A-B stage, where ambiguity is common and teams are still taking shape.