Tech Lead/Engineering Manager (EM)

Raydar; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited paid time off

100% health coverage

Daily meals and fitness benefits

Visa transfers available

Competitive equity

On-site five days per week in San Frnc

Full-time position

Job summary

Raydar is seeking a hands-on Tech Lead and Engineering Manager to shape technical direction and grow a product-focused engineering team in San Francisco. You will mentor engineers, stay hands-on, and deliver core products behind an audio data research platform used by frontier AI labs.

Expect leadership in scaling systems and pipelines for terabytes of data daily, with a strong emphasis on execution. The role requires at least six years in product-focused engineering, excellent web fundamentals,

Qualifications

• At least six years of product-focused engineering experience.
• Strong web development fundamentals and end-to-end product shipping.
• Experience leading technical teams through rapid growth at a high-growth startup or scale-up.
• A track record of building zero-to-one products and scaling them successfully.
• Comfort solving ambiguous problems with clear customer impact.
• A bias toward action and reliable execution.
• Willingness to work five days per week from the San Francisco office.

Responsibilities

• Hire, structure, mentor, and grow the engineering team while maintaining high performance.
• Remain hands-on technically and write code regularly, especially early on.
• Scope and ship products that help researchers use high-quality audio data.
• Build scalable processing pipelines that process terabytes of audio data daily.
• Architect systems for higher capacity across data collection, curation, and delivery.
• Partner with the CTO to set technical direction and execute the roadmap.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Hands-on coding

Web development

Zero-to-one product development

Startup/scale-up experience

Technical roadmapping

Data pipelines (high-scale)

Cloud/AWS familiarity

FFmpeg/WebRTC knowledge

Tools

Next.js

TypeScript

Node.js

PostgreSQL

AWS

WebRTC

FFmpeg

Job description

Our client is a fast-growing audio data research company building high-quality datasets for frontier AI labs and leading technology companies. Founded in 2024 by former large-scale AI data engineers and operators, the company has grown to roughly 50 employees, serves most major AI labs and technology leaders, generates eight figures of revenue, and has raised $80M from top-tier investors.

We are hiring a hands-on Tech Lead and Engineering Manager to lead and grow a product-focused engineering team. Reporting directly to the CTO, you will shape technical direction, ship the core products behind an audio data research platform, and build a high-performing organization.

What you’ll do

• Hire, structure, mentor, and grow the engineering team while maintaining high performance standards
• Remain hands‑on technically and write code regularly, especially during the early months
• Scope and ship products that help researchers use high-quality audio data
• Build scalable processing pipelines that extract useful information from terabytes of audio data each day
• Architect systems for dramatically higher capacity across data collection, curation, and delivery
• Partner with the CTO to set technical direction and execute an ambitious product roadmap
• Lead zero-to-one product work and scale successful systems
• At least six years of product-focused engineering experience
• Strong web development fundamentals and experience shipping user-facing products end to end
• Experience leading technical teams through rapid growth at a high-growth startup or scale-up
• A track record of building zero-to-one products and scaling them successfully
• Comfort solving ambiguous, previously unsolved problems with clear customer impact
• A bias toward action paired with detailed, reliable execution
• Willingness to work five days per week from the San Francisco office

Bonus points

• At least two years of formal engineering management experience
• Experience as a founder or early technical leader
• Experience with large-scale data pipelines, audio systems, or AI infrastructure
• Familiarity with Next.js, TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS, WebRTC, or FFmpeg
• Base salary of $250K-$300K
• Competitive equity
• Unlimited paid time off
• 100% health coverage
• Daily meals and fitness benefits
• Visa transfers, including OPT or H-1B transfers, are available
• On-site five days per week in San Francisco, California
• Full-time position