Director of Engineering

Handtevy

$130K — $160K *
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years in software engineering
  • 3+ years in an engineering leadership role at a SaaS company
  • Experience managing a growing engineering team through startup to growth-stage delivery
  • Proven track record managing high-performing engineering and QA teams
  • Deep technical background to evaluate architectural trade-offs in a SaaS stack

Responsibilities

  • Lead and develop engineering and QA teams, focusing on hiring and performance management
  • Communicate and collaborate with the Director of Product to align engineering execution with product goals
  • Translate product roadmaps into actionable engineering plans, addressing feasibility and trade-offs
  • Drive delivery processes and continuously improve the engineering operating system
  • Remove blockers proactively and ensure team efficiency while maintaining clear ownership across domains

Benefits

  • Opportunity to work closely with CTO and product leadership
  • Engage in a people-first, communication-forward culture
  • Contribute to systems that impact healthcare and emergency services
  • Work in a lean, high-impact engineering organization
  • Hybrid work model with 3 days on-site in Davie, FL office
Full Job Description
THE OPPORTUNITY
Every second in the field counts, and the systems that power our clinicians need to be built, led, and scaled with
the same precision they depend on.
We are looking for a Director of Engineering to join our leadership team as we scale. This is a people-first,
communication-forward leadership position for someone who knows how to build great teams and run a
disciplined delivery operation across our web, mobile, and backend systems. Someone who raises the bar on
engineering practices and translates strategy into execution without losing either side in the process.
You should be technical enough to understand the architecture, evaluate trade-offs, and pressure-test estimates.
You don't need to write production code in this role, but you need to have written it.
You'll report directly to our CTO and work closely with our Senior Engineering Leads and our Director of Product,
who owns the roadmap. Your job is to make the whole system work: keeping the team focused, the commitments
honest, and the business informed.

WHAT YOU'LL DO
1. Lead & Develop the Engineering and QA Teams
• Manage, coach, and grow our engineering and QA teams, owning hiring, performance management, and
career development
• Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement where good engineers stay and
grow
• Partner with our Senior Engineering Leads to ensure engineers have the support and clarity to do their best
work
2. Partner with Product & Represent Engineering to the Business
• Be the engineering counterpart to our Director of Product: Product owns the what and why, you own the
how, when, and who. Together you own the planning seam between roadmap and execution
• Translate the product roadmap into clear engineering plans with real estimates and explicit trade-offs, and
translate engineering constraints and risk back into business language leadership can act on
• Push back constructively when scope or timelines are unrealistic; offer alternatives, not just problems
• Engage engineering early in product discovery so feasibility and effort shape requirements before they are
locked
• Establish and enforce a practical definition of ready for engineering work, ensuring features have clear
scope, acceptance criteria, technical considerations, test expectations, and trade-offs before development
begins
3. Drive Delivery & Engineering Execution
• Own and continuously improve the engineering operating system, including the SDLC, planning, sprint
execution, release process, quality practices, and delivery rhythm, while developing leads so the system
does not depend on one person
• Remove blockers proactively and keep the team moving without becoming a bottleneck yourself
• Establish clear ownership across product and technical domains, ensuring engineers understand their
areas of responsibility, decision-making expectations, and when broader cross-functional alignment is
needed
• Raise the bar on release confidence: drive quality and reliability across the platform, including test
automation strategy, incident response, and production monitoring
• Track and improve engineering KPIs: velocity, reliability, incident response, and tech debt
Partner on Strategy & Architecture
• Work with the CTO to align engineering execution with business goals and long-term product vision
• Own the engineering-side contributions to our SOC 2 posture: secure development practices, code-level
controls, and audit-ready engineering processes, in partnership with the CTO who owns the overall program
• Co-evaluate architectural trade-offs with the CTO. There is no dedicated architect on the team, so this role
carries real technical authority and accountability for how the platform is built and scaled
• Partner with the CTO on vendor relationships, tooling decisions, and team growth planning

YOUR ROLE ON THE TEAM
You're joining a lean, high-impact engineering organization. Our CTO sets the technical vision and has direct
ownership of the Cloud and DevOps function. Our Director of Product owns the roadmap, prioritization, and the
voice of the customer. Our Senior Engineering Leads drive hands-on execution with the engineering team. You
are the leader who makes delivery work: the person who builds the team, keeps commitments achievable, and
makes sure the rest of the business always knows where things stand.
Software Engineering and QA report to you. While Cloud and DevOps report through the CTO, you are
accountable for application delivery readiness and work closely with DevOps to ensure releases, observability,
CI/CD, and incident response support predictable product delivery. Your partnership with the Director of Product
is the most important working relationship in this role. When Product and Engineering are aligned, the whole
company moves faster.
This is a role for someone who gets energy from clarity. From turning an ambitious roadmap into crisp
engineering plans, from having hard conversations early so the team isn't scrambling later, and from building the
kind of team culture where good engineers stay and grow.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

*MUST-HAVES
• 10+ years in software engineering, including 3+
years in an engineering leadership role at a
SaaS company
• Experience managing and growing a growing
engineering team through a transition from

*NICE TO HAVES
• Background in healthcare, emergency services,
or safety-critical SaaS
• Experience scaling engineering teams from
startup to growth stage

startup-style execution to more structured
growth-stage delivery
• Proven track record managing high-performing
engineering teams, including QA functions and
release quality
• Deep enough technical background to evaluate
architectural trade-offs in a modern web/mobile
SaaS stack
• Exceptional communicator equally comfortable
presenting to the C-suite and collaborating with
a senior engineer
• Experience working as the engineering-side
partner to product leadership: turning roadmaps
into execution plans and business priorities into
sprint reality
• Ability to hold technical quality and delivery
velocity simultaneously without sacrificing either
• Genuine fluency with, or strong openness to,
AI-assisted development practices and how
they change team productivity
• Experience improving Agile/Scrum practices in
a growing engineering organization without
adding unnecessary bureaucracy
• Authorized to work in the United States
• Exposure to mobile-first product development
• Familiarity with Cloud and distributed
environments
• Experience working in SOC 2 or similarly
compliance-driven environments

THE RIGHT FIT
• You can walk into a planning session with the Director of Product and a sprint review with engineers on the
same day, and hold your own in both rooms.
• You believe that great engineering leadership is mostly communication and trust, and you have the track
record to prove it.
• You say no early, with alternatives attached, instead of agreeing in the meeting and letting the team fail
quietly.
• You stay calm when priorities shift, and you help your team do the same.
• You take ownership without micromanaging. You know the difference.
• You care about the mission. Technology that helps save lives deserves engineering leadership that takes it
seriously.

HOW TO APPLY
Send us a brief intro and your resume. We're most interested in understanding how you've worked with product
leadership: the moments where alignment broke down, and how you rebuilt it. Tell us about a time you had to
push back on a roadmap, or a time you had to explain an engineering constraint to a non-technical stakeholder
and get their buy-in.

Compensation is competitive and commensurate with experience. This role is hybrid with 3 days on-site per week
at our Davie, FL office.

Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. We are not able to provide visa sponsorship at this
time.

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