Head of Engineering

Adquadrant; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Healthcare benefits

401K with match

Flexible PTO

Home office stipend

Internet stipend

Offsite retreats

Laptop provided

Job summary

Adquadrant is building an AI-native engineering and product organization in Irvine. You’ll inherit an existing codebase, migrate to a modern stack, and stand up a lean offshore team of senior ICs to own engineering, product, and data science as a single discipline.

You are an experienced leader who has scaled teams, shipped production AI/ML systems, and can drive DevSecOps from day one while shaping the roadmap and metrics for AI features.

Qualifications

• 10+ years building software.
• 4+ years leading teams.
• Shipped production AI/ML systems.
• Managed offshore engineers as peers.
• Hands-on with modern stacks: TypeScript, Python, Go.
• Comfort with ads, commerce, or marketplaces is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own the full SDLC end-to-end: architecture, delivery, quality, security, operations.
• Lead transition from fractional to permanent engineering and scale the team.
• Define roles, hiring, and compensation bands for a 5–7 person senior offshore team.
• Own product direction and data/ML strategy until leadership hires.
• Implement DevSecOps, CI/CD, IaC, observability, and security readiness.
• Make AI the default approach, integrating agents and evaluation pipelines.

Skills

AI/ML systems

Team leadership

Offshore engineering

Full-stack dev

TypeScript

Python

Job description

At Adquadrant, we help consumer brands grow profitably by bringing media, creative, and measurement together with AI.

Our model is built on a simple idea: marketing should be managed like growth capital. We focus on contribution margin, not vanity metrics, and design strategies where technology and human expertise work side by side. The result is an operating system for growth that gives brands clarity, efficiency, and creative that actually performs.

Our strongest alliances are with Google and Meta, where we collaborate directly on AI, measurement, and commerce innovation to give our clients first-mover advantage. We are one of the few U.S. agencies with dual-badged status at TikTok, both as a Marketing Partner and a TikTok Shop Partner, which means our clients gain access to programs and capabilities before they reach the broader market. We also maintain active partnerships with Snap, Pinterest, and other emerging platforms, ensuring brands we work with benefit from priority support, exclusive insights, and opportunities their competitors don’t see.

If you want to architect the future of performance marketing, you belong here.

Job Summary:

We’re building an AI-native engineering and product org from scratch — and we want one person to own it. You’ll inherit an existing codebase, lead its migration to a modern stack you help design, and stand up a lean offshore team of senior ICs around you. You’ll own engineering, product, and data science as a single discipline until the team is big enough to specialize.

This is the seat for someone who has done the work, scaled a team, and wants to do it again at a place where the AI thesis is real and the budget is disciplined.

What You’ll Own:

• The full SDLC, end to end. Architecture, delivery, quality, security, and operations. Not "set strategy and delegate" — you'll write code in the first 90 days, set the bar, and stay close enough to ship.
• The transition from fractional to permanent engineering. We've been running on an outsourced senior team that built the v0 well; they're not the team to scale it, and that was always the deal. You'll inherit what they shipped, decide what to keep, what to rewrite, and what to retire — and run that transition without breaking the business depending on it.
• The team you build. A small, senior, mostly-offshore (LATAM-leaning) team of full-stack, data, and ML engineers. You'll spec the roles, vet candidates, set comp bands, and define the operating cadence. Plan for 5–7 senior ICs in year one. We are not interested in twenty mid-level engineers; we are interested in seven people who do the work of twenty.
• Product and data science, until they specialize. You'll own product direction and data/ML strategy as part of this seat. We'll hire dedicated PM and DS leadership when the surface area demands it. Until then, the roadmap, the metrics, and the AI features are yours.
• DevSecOps from day one. Modern CI/CD, IaC, observability, secrets management, SOC 2-readiness on a realistic timeline. We're not a fintech, but we handle client data and revenue-driving systems. Bar: "won't embarrass us in a security review," not "Google-scale."
• AI as the default, not the feature. AQi is an agent-architected product. LLMs, evals, RAG, fine-tuning where it actually moves a metric, autonomous actions where the trust gradient supports them. The team you build should treat AI-assisted development (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, evals as a first-class artifact) as baseline, not perk. You're calibrated on what's hype and what's leverage.

What You’ll Bring:

• 10+ years building software, 4+ leading teams
• First or second engineering hire somewhere that grew, OR ran an 8–15 person team through a real scale or transition
• Shipped production AI/ML systems — not demos. You've debugged a RAG pipeline at 2am and you know what evals are actually for
• Managed offshore engineers as peers, not as a cost center. You know the difference
• Comfort in commerce, ads, marketplaces, or creator data is a plus, not a requirement; you'll ramp faster if you have it
• Hands-on with at least one modern stack. TypeScript, Python, Go all fine. Opinions welcome

What We Care About:

• You ship. You've personally written production code this year
• You can hire. You've also fired, and learned from it
• You have a real point of view on where agents in production are actually breaking down right now
• You think in tradeoffs, not absolutes
• You're allergic to consultant-speak and slideware

What We're Not:

• Not a venture-backed startup with a hypergrowth narrative. Profitable, founder-led, operating with intent
• Not building AGI. Building useful, high-leverage software for a specific commerce wedge with real data behind it
• Not interested in a 30-person engineering org. Interested in 6 people who do the work of 20
• Not going to micromanage your team. Will push hard on outcomes

Benefits and Culture:

• Our people come first. No jerks. No egos. Just people who work hard and enjoy winning as a team.
• Base Salary Range: $180,000K–$220,000K per year, commensurate with experience, skills, and qualifications. Final compensation will be determined based on a variety of factors including relevant experience, depth of expertise, and business need.
• Equity: meaningful. We’ll have a real conversation about it — not a hand-wave.
• Excellent medical, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits
• 401K with company match
• Flexible PTO and Paid Company Holidays
• Performance-based bonus
• $300 annual home office stipend
• $30 monthly internet stipend
• A culture that rewards accountability, revolutionary thinking, and resilience.
• Irvine, California location required (time zone overlap with LATAM team is part of the job).
• Quarterly in-person offsites with leadership.
• Virtual collaboration through virtual meetings and Slack.
• Use of a laptop (Mac), computer software, and office productivity tools.
• Reliable internet access and a professional background.
• Reasonable accommodations available for qualified individuals with disabilities.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.