Head of Engineering

Salt Digital Recruitment; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Salt Digital Recruitment seeks a Head of Engineering to own the technology strategy, architecture and engineering standards across multiple products. This leader will stay hands-on, review architecture and critical systems, and drive technical decisions to scale reliability and performance.

You will recruit and develop senior engineers, set high engineering standards, and partner with leadership to align technology with business goals in a fast-growing AI-enabled environment.

Qualifications

• Senior technology leadership experience in a high-growth tech or AI environment.
• Proven ability to review architecture and challenge technical decisions at scale.
• Strong understanding of backend systems, APIs, databases and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience building reliable, scalable production systems and teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the overall technology strategy and engineering direction across products and teams.
• Lead architecture decisions and set engineering standards for reliability and performance.
• Directly review critical systems, architecture, infrastructure and code.
• Drive improvements in productivity, velocity and production reliability.
• Foster a high-performing engineering culture focused on quality and execution.
• Recruit and develop senior engineers and engineering leaders.

Skills

Senior leadership

Backend systems

APIs

Cloud infrastructure

Distributed systems

Code review

Architecture decisions

Job description

About the Opportunity

We are partnering with a fast-growing technology company building a new generation of AI-native products designed to make everyday communication, organization, tasks and workflows more intelligent and intuitive. The business is developing proactive AI experiences that require minimal prompting, with a strong focus on reliability, persistent context and successful real-world task completion.

The Role

The Head of Engineering will own the overall technology strategy, architecture and engineering standards, providing technical leadership across multiple products, platforms and engineering teams. This is not a purely executive or people leadership position. The successful individual will remain close to the technology, with the ability to review architecture, challenge technical decisions, assess critical systems and engage directly with complex engineering problems. You will combine strategic technology leadership with deep technical expertise, helping the organization build scalable, reliable and high-performing systems while establishing a world-class engineering function.

What You'll Be Doing

• Own the overall technology strategy and technical direction of the organization.
• Lead architecture and major technical decisions across products and platforms.
• Review critical systems, architecture, infrastructure and code directly.
• Establish engineering standards across reliability, security, performance, testing and code quality.
• Identify technical debt, architectural constraints and scalability challenges and drive their resolution.
• Improve engineering productivity, development velocity and production reliability.
• Determine where technology, infrastructure and engineering capabilities should be shared across products and teams.
• Partner with senior leadership to ensure technology strategy supports broader business and product objectives.
• Recruit, assess and develop senior engineers, technical leads and engineering leaders.
• Build a high-performing engineering culture focused on quality, ownership and execution.
• Remain actively involved in critical incidents and complex technical challenges when required.

What We're Looking For

• Deep software engineering background with significant experience building and scaling production systems.
• Previous senior technology leadership experience, ideally within a high-growth technology, software or AI environment.
• Strong knowledge of backend systems, APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure and distributed systems.
• Experience making architecture decisions across multiple products, platforms or engineering teams.
• Strong technical judgement with the ability to challenge engineering decisions at both architectural and implementation level.
• Proven experience building, scaling and developing high-performing engineering teams.
• Strong understanding of reliability, security, scalability, performance and modern software engineering practices.
• Experience balancing long-term architecture with the need to move and deliver quickly.
• Comfortable operating in an ambitious, fast-paced and highly technical environment.
• Still technically hands-on, with the ability to review code, architecture, production incidents and complex engineering problems directly.

What Success Looks Like

You will establish a clear technology strategy and engineering foundation capable of supporting significant product and business growth. Engineering teams will operate with stronger standards, improved development velocity and greater production reliability, while architectural decisions will enable the organization to scale without creating unnecessary complexity. Most importantly, you will combine executive-level technology leadership with genuine engineering depth, remaining close enough to the technology to influence critical decisions and raise the technical bar across the organization.

Salt is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.