Director of Engineering (Hands-On Architect)

Space Dinosaurs; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

100% Remote Work

Growth opportunities

AI tooling licenses

Competitive compensation

Job summary

Space Dinosaurs is seeking a Director of Engineering (Hands-On Architect) to own outcomes across multiple squads and client engagements, shaping architecture standards while remaining hands-on 20–30% of the time. You will lead engineering managers, leads, and architects and represent Engineering in senior client conversations.

This role is remote with teams across Canada and LATAM. You will define front-end patterns, performance standards and delivery practices to enable reliable agent execution

Qualifications

• 5+ years in engineering management with experience managing managers, leads, or architects.
• Architectural judgment in modern frontend systems: Next.js patterns, state management, performance standards.
• Delivery ownership in agency or professional services with multiple client engagements.
• Strong written and verbal English across US, Europe, LATAM.
• Evidence of shaping how teams work with AI agents and establishing standards.
• Preferred: Hands-on with SFCC or Shopify Plus/Hydrogen.
• Preferred: MACH architecture and headless commerce familiarity.

Responsibilities

• Own delivery outcomes and velocity across your delivery teams; diagnose systemic bottlenecks.
• Hire, develop, and performance-manage engineering managers, leads, and architects.
• Define front-end architecture patterns, rendering strategies, and performance standards.
• Drive story refinement and documentation standards for reliable execution.
• Establish standards and workflows to make AI agents effective across squads.
• Partner with PMs across time zones, managing competing client priorities while ensuring quality.
• Coach managers on cross-cultural communication and async collaboration.

Skills

Engineering management

Architectural judgment

Delivery ownership

Cross-cultural communication

AI agents standards

Tools

React

Next.js

TypeScript

Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Shopify Plus / Hydrogen

Vercel

CI/CD pipelines

Cursor Code / Claude Code

ChatGPT

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Director of Engineering (Hands‑On Architect)

Remote - Canada or LATAM

Who We Are

Space Dinosaurs builds fast, high-converting ecommerce experiences for the world’s top brands, with a focus on conversion rate and revenue optimization. We’re a specialist e-commerce and creative strategy firm that uses AI-augmented engineering and our CDN engineering heritage to deliver high-performance, scalable digital retail experiences that deliver exceptional revenue performance and growth. Together, we’re a global team of talented designers, engineers, strategists, and operators who like solving hard problems, shipping work we’re proud of, and tying our output to measurable results. Built on decades of retail technology expertise, we’re redefining how retail grows. We are recognized by many of the world’s leading retail and consumer brands for designing and building the fastest, most resilient, future-ready websites and applications that consistently deliver measurable outcomes in revenue.

Role Overview

We build headless commerce platforms for enterprise retail brands on Next.js, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and Shopify Plus — and we need a senior engineering leader who owns people, architecture, and delivery for their teams while shaping engineering standards across the organization. You operate at director level: owning outcomes across multiple squads and client engagements, representing Engineering in senior client conversations, and shaping standards that other teams build against, while remaining hands‑on enough to lead architecture on key initiatives. Your direct reports are engineering managers, leads, and architects — you build the leadership layer, define architecture patterns, and drive delivery outcomes across multiple squads in a distributed, async-first environment. Hands‑on contribution is roughly 20–30% of your time, enough to stay credible and unblock architectural problems, but your impact comes from the leaders you develop and the systems you put around them.. As a Director, you will have the opportunity to expand your scope across additional teams, domains, and strategic accounts as the organization grows.

Essential Functions

• Own delivery outcomes and velocity across your delivery teams — diagnose systemic bottlenecks, not just immediate blockers
• Hire, develop, and performance-manage engineering managers, leads, and architects — build the leadership layer that builds the team
• Define front-end architecture patterns, rendering strategies, and performance standards that multiple delivery teams build against
• Drive story refinement and documentation standards that enable your leads, architects, and their teams to execute reliably
• Establish the standards, documentation habits, and workflow patterns that make AI agents effective across your squads — shaping how teams decompose work for reliable agent execution
• Partner with PMs and stakeholders across time zones, managing competing priorities across client engagements while maintaining delivery quality
• Coach your managers on cross-cultural communication, proactive async collaboration, and the ability to represent technical tradeoffs to non-technical audiences.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in engineering management with experience managing managers, leads, or architects — not just ICs
• Architectural judgment in modern frontend systems: defining Next.js architecture patterns, state management, and performance standards that teams build against
• Delivery ownership in agency or professional services — you’ve run client engagements across competing priorities and kept quality high
• Strong written and verbal English — you’ll collaborate with stakeholders across the US, Europe, and LATAM, and develop your managers’ communication skills across cultures
• Evidence of shaping how teams work with AI agents — not just personal tool usage, but establishing the standards and workflow patterns that make agents effective across a squad: spec-driven development, code review for AI-generated output, and coaching engineers to decompose work for reliable agent execution
• Preferred: Hands‑on experience with Salesforce Commerce Cloud (headless SFRA, OCAPI/SCAPI) or Shopify Plus/Hydrogen
• Preferred: Familiarity with composable commerce patterns (MACH architecture, headless CMS platforms)

Tools

• React, Next.js, TypeScript
• Shopify Plus / Salesforce Commerce Cloud / Big Commerce / SCAYLE
• Vercel, CI/CD pipelines
• Cursor and/or Claude Code, ChatGPT
• Jest, Cypress, Playwright
• Slack, Jira, Confluence

What We Offer

• Startup Environment: A lean, fast-moving team where ownership, autonomy, and accountability are expected.
• High-Impact Work: Meaningful, hands‑on work with direct visibility into outcomes and production impact.
• Top-Tier Clients: Opportunities to work with well‑known, global brands and complex, real‑world challenges.
• Competitive Compensation & Benefits: Market‑aligned pay, comprehensive benefits, and bonus structures where applicable.
• Unlimited PTO: Flexible time off built on trust, ownership, and clear expectations.
• 100% Remote Work: Work from anywhere with a distributed, async‑first team.
• Growth & Development: Room to expand scope, build expertise, and grow alongside the company
• AI: Premium AI tooling licenses (Cursor and/or Claude Code) for your entire team, with organizational support for building AI‑first delivery practices.

EEO Statement:Space Dinosaurs is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. Employment decisions are based on job‑related qualifications and business needs.