Head of Engineering

Direct message the job poster from Staffing Science

Open-Source Developer Platform for AI Agents

Remote anywhere in the USA- The company will not sponsor!

Must have background as head of engineering for dev ex, dev infra, dev platform companies and ideally within the open source space. Along with being part of pre-series startups and seeing raises and ideally a successful exit to be considered.

About the Company (Anonymous)

We’re partnered with an early-stage, venture-backed startup building an Open-Source Developer Platform for AI Agents—this open-source platform lets product teams embed production-grade AI agents inside real-world applications. With fresh capital and a team of accomplished builders, we’re laying the infrastructure that will define how user-interactive AI is delivered at scale.

Why We Need You

They’re evolving from an early-stage, scrappy build culture into a high-velocity, high-quality engineering organization—and we need a proven technical leader to guide that transition. You’ll own delivery from roadmap to production, shape the team’s structure, and hire, coach, and retain world-class talent while keeping everyone aligned and focused on the highest-impact work each day.

What You’ll Do

• Drive velocity & quality – Implement lightweight, data-driven processes so every sprint delivers meaningful, production-ready value.
• Architect & decide – Maintain deep technical context to guide critical architectural choices across OSS libraries and the enterprise cloud platform.
• Build the team – Source, assess, and close top engineers in Dev Ex / Dev Infra / Platform, then mentor them to peak performance and retention.
• Scale the org – Design the operating model that supports growth from single-digit engineers through Series B, C, D… and beyond.
• Simplify complexity – Tame a sprawling integration surface (cloud, AI infra, SDKs) into intuitive APIs that delight developers.
• Champion open source – Cultivate a first-class OSS culture: code reviews, community engagement, and transparent decision-making.
• Partner with leadership – Translate business priorities into engineering outcomes, own budgeting, headcount planning, and OKRs.

What Success Looks Like

• Ship reliable, developer-loved features faster than anyone else in the space.
• Reduce cycle-time and increase release quality quarter over quarter.
• Grow an engineering team that other top performers actively seek out.
• Hit funding and product milestones that set us up for a landmark exit.

Must-Have Qualifications

Experience & What It Demonstrates

• 10+ yrs in software engineering, 5+ yrs leading teams | You’ve managed through ambiguity and hyper-growth.
• Led engineering at a pre-seed / seed startup through Series A → D (ideally to exit) | You understand the capital-to-execution journey and know how org needs evolve.
• Background in Developer Experience, Dev Platforms, or DevOps/Infra | You can empathize with and build for engineers.
• Active contributor or maintainer in open-source communities | You know how to earn trust in public.
• Deep TypeScript or similar modern web stack skills and hands-on cloud architecture (AWS/GCP/Azure) | You can challenge and unblock senior ICs on code and infra alike.
• Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, and retain senior engineering talent | Culture carrier who raises the bar.
• Track record of shipping at startup pace without sacrificing stability | You can balance debt vs. delivery.

Nice-to-Haves

• Prior work on AI/ML infra, LLM integrations, or agent frameworks.
• Scaled engineering orgs from <10 to 30+ people.
• Experience building multi-tenant SaaS or large-scale cloud platforms.
• Public speaking or writing in Dev Tooling / Open-Source circles.

What We Offer

• Early-stage equity with clear value-creation milestones.
• Competitive salary & full health, dental, and vision benefits
• Generous PTO and flexible hybrid-remote culture.
• A seat at the exec table shaping a core layer of tomorrow’s AI stack.

If you’re a hands-on, high-leverage engineering leader who thrives on turning scrappy momentum into disciplined hyper-growth—and you have the scars (and wins) from doing it before—we’d love to meet you.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Director

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Industries

  Staffing and Recruiting and Software Development

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Inferred from the description for this job

Medical insurance

Vision insurance

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