The Opportunity
We're seeking a Director of Engineering to define and execute Zencoder's engineering strategy, scale the engineering team, and cultivate a strong engineering culture.
Our ideal candidate will have a solid technical background, a passion for AI, and a successful history of building and scaling healthy organizations with high team engagement, a strong focus on innovation, and a compelling employer brand. In this role, you’ll guide technical decisions, drive priorities, and lead a team of exceptional engineers in a fast-paced setting.
This is a rare opportunity to join an early-stage startup led by the founder of a unicorn company and help scale it into a thriving, innovative business. You’ll be a part of the team that ships AI products, shaping the future of software development and unlocking the creative potential of brilliant minds.
This is a full-time, fully remote role based in Europe.

Key Responsibilities

• Scale up engineering teams rapidly, ensuring effective leadership and growth.
• Define and execute the engineering strategy in alignment with the product roadmap, ensuring coherent decision-making across teams.
• Champion delivery focus and general operational and execution excellence.
• Lead the adoption of best practices in system design, release management, reliability, and scalability.
• Cultivate strong relationships with key customers, understand their needs and pain points, and take ownership of problems when they arise.
• Design and implement processes and the management structure that enable the team to scale efficiently while maintaining startup agility.
• Lead the recruitment, onboarding, and development of a top-notch engineering team, defining roles, conducting interviews, and making critical hiring decisions to grow the team.
• Foster a strong culture in engineering through knowledge-sharing practices, hackathons, and technical workshops to promote innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Essential Qualifications

• Strong technical background with extensive experience as a software engineer building complex solutions and a deep understanding of modern engineering practices.
• Demonstrated experience in recruiting, building, scaling, structuring, and leading technical engineering teams in a startup and scaleup environment.
• Proven track record of delivering complex “deep tech” products with a high degree of ambiguity and tight deadlines.
• Scale in product: Delivered solutions used by millions of users.
• Scale in team: Experience managing organizations with 100+ engineers.
• Scale in recruiting: Experience growing teams by dozens of engineers annual
• Excellent English communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with diverse international teams and stakeholders.
• Ability to move fast in a dynamic environment with strong ownership.
• Firm grasp of GenAI technologies, real-world experience integrating AI technologies into innovative products, driving the development of cutting-edge solutions.