Head of Software Engineering — NYC, Hands-on Leader

Nodi; New York, Northern (NY, KY); Hybrid; USD 237,000 - 340,000; Full time

Job summary

Radical AI in New York City is seeking a Head of Software Engineering to build and lead a fast-growing software team. This player-coach role requires weekly code shipping, owning growth, culture, and long-term technical direction while collaborating with science, hardware, and product.

You will stabilize a lean team during rapid hiring and expansion, tackle architectural challenges for near-term deployments, and shape a roadmap balancing speed, correctness, and scale.

Qualifications

• 8–15 years of software engineering experience with hands-on shipping.
• Led an engineering team of 15+ in a startup or similarly fast-moving environment in the last 5 years.
• Still hands-on: writes code and reviews code; not purely managerial.
• Strong systems thinking to design complex distributed systems.
• Fluency in Go and/or Python (primary stack).
• Establishes processes to make teams faster without bureaucracy.
• Based in New York City or willing to relocate; in-person presence required.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the software engineering team while delivering weekly code releases.
• Establish team rhythms: standups, planning, retros, and code reviews.
• Drive architectural decisions and define the long-term technical roadmap.
• Collaborate with product, science, and hardware stakeholders.
• Communicate tradeoffs clearly and maintain customer-focused technical direction.

Skills

Team leadership

Hands-on coding

Go and/or Python

Distributed systems

Process improvement

Technical communication

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

Terraform/CloudFormation

Docker

Job description

Radical AI in New York City is seeking a Head of Software Engineering to build and lead a fast-growing software team. This player-coach role requires weekly code shipping, owning growth, culture, and long-term technical direction while collaborating with science, hardware, and product.

You will stabilize a lean team during rapid hiring and expansion, tackle architectural challenges for near-term deployments, and shape a roadmap balancing speed, correctness, and scale.