Head of Software Engineering — NYC, Hands-on Leader

Nodi; New York (NY); 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

Compensation $237,000 – $340,000 · per year · USD

Interested in this role?

About Radical AI

Radical AI is a materials company replacing the R&D process that currently takes 10 years and $100 million to produce a single discovery. Instead of leaving world-changing industries like aerospace, automotive, energy, manufacturing, semiconductors, and space to engineer around material shortcomings, Radical invents new materials for specific performance goals in a matter of weeks. This acceleration of research is fueled by scientific agents that simulate novel compositions and then send them directly into an automated lab for physical synthesis, characterization, and validation.

We're a small, senior team, growing fast. This is a foundational hire.

The Role

We're looking for a Head of Software Engineering to build and lead the software engineering team as we scale. This is a player-coach role in the truest sense: you ship code every week, and you own the team's growth, culture, processes, and long-term technical direction. You ship fast, iterate in public, and don't wait for consensus.

You'll report to our President and Co-Founder, and work closely with cross-functional stakeholders across science, hardware, and product. The immediate mandate is to stabilize and grow a talented but lean team during a period of rapid hiring and technical expansion — including near-term customer deployments that involve significant architectural challenges.

This is not a role for someone who wants to delegate the hard technical problems. It's for someone who wants to be in the middle of them, and who's comfortable making calls with incomplete information.

What You'll Do

Lead the team:

• Hire, develop, and retain a high-caliber software engineering team
• Establish the rhythms that make the team hum: standups, planning, retrospectives, code review culture
• Be the person your engineers grow with — technically and professionally

Stay technical:

• Conduct daily code reviews; ship production code weekly, with a bias toward shipping over perfecting
• Drive and participate meaningfully in architectural discussions and decisions
• Maintain deep enough fluency with the stack to debug production issues, challenge proposals, and earn your engineers' respect

Shape the roadmap:

• Build and own the long-term software development roadmap, in close partnership with our co-founder and the product team
• Translate ambiguous business and scientific requirements into clear technical strategy
• Navigate the tradeoffs between speed, correctness, and scale in a high-stakes, rapidly evolving environment — and default to speed when the tradeoff is close

Manage up and across:

• Be a credible technical voice in leadership discussions — someone who can whiteboard a system design as easily as they can present a roadmap
• Interface with product, science, and hardware stakeholders effectively; understand what "customer-centric" actually means in a deep-tech context

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 8-15 years of software engineering experience, with current hands-on shipping (not just review and sign-off)
• Has built or scaled an engineering team from under 15 people in a startup or similarly fast-moving environment within the last 5 years
• Still deeply hands-on: you write code, review code, and won't use a management title as a reason not to
• Strong systems thinking — you can design complex distributed systems under constraints and communicate tradeoffs clearly
• Fluency in Go and/or Python (our primary stack)
• Proven ability to establish processes that make teams faster without creating bureaucracy
• Based in — or willing to relocate to — New York City; this role requires regular in-person presence with the team

Not the right fit if:

• You're coming from a large, process-mature engineering org without recent experience shipping in a fast, ambiguous, resource-constrained environment
• You default to extensive review cycles or consensus-building before moving — this team makes real-time tradeoffs without established playbooks

Nice to have:

• Experience with hybrid cloud/on-prem deployments or customer-site delivery (hardware + software combined)
• Background in robotics, automation, scientific computing, or similarly constrained production environments
• Familiarity with agentic systems, LLM workflows, or AI-adjacent infrastructure
• Experience with containerization, Kubernetes, AWS, and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/CloudFormation)

Work Arrangement

This is an in-person role based at our Brooklyn Navy Yard headquarters.. We're not looking for a remote or fractional arrangement — the team needs someone on the ground.

Compensation

$237,000 - $340,000 base + equity + benefits

Compensation varies based on experience and scope. We offer 100% employer-covered medical, dental, and vision insurance, unlimited PTO, 14+ company holidays, 401(k), and mental health support.

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Radical AI is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, disability, or veteran status.