Director of Engineering
Technology • Remote, USA only • Exempt
Department
Technology
Location
Remote, USA only
Reports To
Head of Technology
ABOUT THE ROLE
Clinicians, schools, and hospitals rely on WPS assessments to evaluate autism, learning differences, and developmental needs. WPS is looking for an engineering leader to build and run the organization behind the software those professionals depend on - including WPS Hub, our digital assessment platform.
As Director of Engineering, you'll lead WPS's engineering strategy, structure, talent, budget, and delivery within the technology direction set by the Head of Technology. You'll move WPS from partner-delivered to in-house engineering, build a nearshore team from the ground up, and shape an AI-first engineering organization that WPS owns and that efficiently ships high-impact products. You're a people leader and organization builder first, and a player-coach: hands-on in architecture, code review, and releases in your first year, then shifting toward coaching and developing leaders as the team scales.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Build the engineering strategy and multi-year capability roadmap, aligned with the technology strategy and company priorities.
• Design, hire, and develop the engineering organization - including managers, QA, and the leadership layers needed to scale - with clear ownership, decision rights, and career paths.
• Lead the transition from external development partners to internal and nearshore teams, ensuring continuity of delivery, knowledge transfer, and shared ownership of the codebase.
• Manage the engineering budget, headcount plan, and partner relationships, including nearshore partner selection and negotiation.
• Build an AI software factory: shared workflows, tools, and agent instructions that every engineer uses across planning, development, testing, and delivery.
• Establish automated feedback loops that turn lessons from shipped features, bug fixes, code reviews, and customer outcomes into better context, agent instructions, and tests.
• Define engineering metrics for delivery speed, quality, and reliability, and set standards for AI tool use, validation, and human oversight.
• Own the software development lifecycle from intake through production support, partnering with Product Management on roadmap and priorities.
• Set standards for CI/CD, testing, observability, privacy, accessibility, and secure development, in partnership with Infrastructure and Security & Compliance.
• Stay hands-on where it counts: architecture decisions, tool and vendor evaluation, code review, release readiness, and incident response.
• Report on engineering delivery, risk, and performance to the Head of Technology and company leadership.
WHAT YOU BRING
Required
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering teams and 2+ years managing managers or team leads.
• Earlier career experience as a hands-on senior software engineer (full stack or back-end preferred), with strong foundations in system design and data architecture.
• Track record of designing and building an engineering organization, including adding management layers as it scaled.
• Experience leading an engineering organization through a major transition, such as moving from vendor-delivered to in-house or nearshore delivery.
• Experience building or managing distributed or nearshore teams, including partner selection and contract terms.
• Experience owning an engineering budget, including external partner spend.
• Demonstrated experience building shared AI workflows and tooling that an engineering team adopted, with measurable results.
• Sound judgment with AI tools: knowing when to use them, how to evaluate their output, and how to ship responsibly in a high-trust domain.
• Experience shipping production software in a high-accuracy, high-trust, or regulated environment, and modernizing an existing platform while continuing to ship.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred), modern CI/CD, and automated testing.
• A people leadership track record that former direct reports will vouch for, including building performance management and career development.
Preferred
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 2+ years in a high-rigor engineering environment, such as a fast-scaling technology company.
• Experience in healthcare, education, assessment, publishing, or other expert-content domains.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Organization Building: Designs, hires, and develops engineering teams and leaders; adds structure and management layers as the organization scales.
AI-First Engineering: Builds shared AI workflows and standards that measurably improve delivery speed, quality, and reliability.
Delivery Leadership: Owns the SDLC end to end and leads major delivery-model transitions without disrupting customer value.
Technical Depth: Reviews code, challenges architecture decisions, and earns credibility with senior engineers.
Executive Communication: Communicates clearly with non-technical leaders and partners; makes sound decisions quickly in ambiguous environments.
COMPENSATION
$230,000 - $250,000 annually
