Director of Engineering — Real-Time Platform & AI

Harnham; Tempe (AZ); Remote; USD 180,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work initially

Hybrid flexibility in Phoenix area

Equity opportunity

Job summary

Harnham in Tempe/Phoenix, AZ is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead the first senior software engineering team at an early-stage technology company. You will shape architecture, set engineering standards, and build a high-performing, scalable platform for real-time, automated operations.

This hands-on, player-coach role requires recruiting and mentoring engineers, partnering with product and operations, and guiding production readiness from prototype to production.

Qualifications

• Strong hands-on software engineering capability.
• Expertise in system architecture and end-to-end platform design.
• Full-stack understanding across UI, services, data, cloud infra, and integrations.
• Commercial experience building and operating real-time applications.
• Reliability, monitoring, debugging, uptime management, incident response.

Responsibilities

• Architect and evolve the software platform across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and integrations.
• Write, review, test, and deploy production code.
• Evaluate existing systems and determine what should be retained, improved, or rebuilt.
• Establish engineering best practices, development workflows, and technical standards.
• Own platform reliability, monitoring, security, incident response, and operational excellence.
• Partner with product, operations, and end users to translate requirements into solutions.
• Drive technical decision-making across architecture, tooling, and build-versus-buy considerations.
• Recruit and mentor engineers while building a scalable engineering organisation.
• Collaborate with AI and automation specialists to integrate modern development approaches and intelligent capabilities.
• Lead the transition from early-stage product development to a robust production environment.

Job description

Harnham in Tempe/Phoenix, AZ is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead the first senior software engineering team at an early-stage technology company. You will shape architecture, set engineering standards, and build a high-performing, scalable platform for real-time, automated operations.

This hands-on, player-coach role requires recruiting and mentoring engineers, partnering with product and operations, and guiding production readiness from prototype to production.