Director of System Engineering

Huxley; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Huxley is seeking a Director of Systems Engineering to lead and mentor a multi-disciplinary engineering organization across data, software, platform, and AI engineering. You will define long-term platform strategy, guide API design and data models, and oversee architecture decisions while maintaining hands-on involvement with critical systems.

You will partner with AI-focused teams to ensure data and software foundations support AI at scale, drive modernization while balancing debt and business

Qualifications

• 10+ years building and operating software, data, or platform systems.
• Significant experience leading engineering organizations and developing high‑performing teams.
• Deep expertise in modern software architecture and distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience with Python, Snowflake, Databricks, FastAPI, Redis, and RESTful APIs.

Responsibilities

• Lead a high-performing engineering organization across data, software, platform, and API disciplines.
• Define vision and roadmap for enterprise data and application platforms.
• Establish architectural standards across cloud services, APIs, and distributed systems.
• Ensure systems are scalable, reliable, secure, observable, and maintainable.
• Partner with AI teams to enable AI-powered applications at scale.
• Drive engineering rigor through testing, documentation, and operational excellence.

Skills

Leadership

Distributed systems

Python

Snowflake

Databricks

FastAPI

Redis

REST APIs

Data platforms

Architectural excellence

Job description

Role: Director of Systems Engineering

Who You'll Lead: A talented group of engineers spanning Data, Software, Platform, and AI Engineering

Your Superpower: Equal parts engineering leader, architect, mentor, and builder

Tech Playground: Python, Snowflake, Databricks, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Redis, Azure, APIs, distributed systems, and modern AI platforms

The Opportunity

• We're looking for a technically exceptional engineering leader who still enjoys getting their hands dirty.
• This isn't a role where you'll spend your days moving boxes on org charts or sitting in status meetings. We're searching for someone who can zoom out to define long-term platform strategy and zoom in to debate API design, data models, architecture decisions, or the occasional pull request.
• You'll lead the engineering teams responsible for the data platforms, software systems, APIs, and internal products that power critical business operations. Think large-scale platforms, real-time data, high reliability, strong governance, and plenty of interesting technical challenges.
• You'll also work closely with AI-focused engineering teams to ensure our data and software foundations are ready for the next wave of AI-powered applications. No need to be an AI researcher, but you should speak the language and understand how modern engineering platforms enable AI at scale.
• If you're the type of leader who still gets excited by elegant architecture, solving hard systems problems, and helping engineers' level up, keep reading.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead a High-Performing Engineering Organization
• Develop, mentor, and grow engineers across data, software, platform, and API disciplines.
• Foster a culture of ownership, quality, curiosity, and continuous improvement.
• Create an environment where engineers can do their best work while delivering meaningful outcomes.

Own the Engineering Foundation

• Define the vision and roadmap for enterprise data and application platforms.
• Establish architectural standards across cloud services, distributed systems, APIs, and business applications.
• Ensure systems are scalable, resilient, secure, observable, and built to last.
• Drive modernization initiatives while balancing technical debt and business priorities.

Build Platforms That Matter

• Lead the design and evolution of mission-critical platforms that support complex operational and analytical workflows.
• Oversee data ecosystems including ingestion pipelines, data products, semantic layers, governance, lineage, and quality frameworks.
• Guide backend engineering efforts across APIs, integrations, automation, and internal platforms.
• Champion engineering excellence through strong development practices, testing, documentation, and operational rigor.

Be the Technical Adult in the Room

• Review designs and challenge assumptions.
• Help teams navigate trade-offs between speed, complexity, reliability, and cost.
• Coach engineers toward pragmatic, maintainable solutions.
• Set the technical bar and help the organization continuously raise it.

Build for an AI-Enabled Future

• Partner with AI engineering leaders to ensure platforms can support modern AI use cases.
• Enable capabilities such as semantic search, RAG architectures, vector databases, embeddings, and model-facing services.
• Help establish governance, observability, security controls, and responsible AI practices throughout the platform ecosystem.

Keep Production Healthy

• Own operational excellence across monitoring, incident response, reliability, automation, CI/CD, and service health.
• Drive measurable improvements in platform performance, availability, and engineering productivity.
• Ensure critical systems remain dependable as the organization grows.

The Essentials

• 10+ years of experience building and operating software, data, or platform systems.
• Significant experience leading engineering organizations and developing high-performing teams.
• Deep expertise in modern software architecture and distributed systems.
• Strong hands-on experience with technologies such as:
• Python
• Snowflake
• Databricks
• FastAPI or comparable frameworks
• Redis
• RESTful APIs

You're Likely Someone Who...

• Can discuss business strategy in the morning and system architecture in the afternoon.
• Enjoys mentoring engineers as much as solving technical problems.
• Knows when perfection matters and when "good enough" gets the business moving.
• Has strong opinions about engineering excellence but holds them lightly.
• Understands that reliability, simplicity, and maintainability are features.

Contact Info - LinkedIn DM / [e-mail]