Runpod is pioneering the future of AI and machine learning by offering cutting-edge cloud infrastructure for full-stack AI applications. The company aims to create a foundational platform for developers to build and run custom AI systems that scale. The role of the Director of Software Engineering is to lead and scale Runpod’s product-delivery engineering organization to ensure the platform remains the fastest and most intuitive path for training and running AI inference workloads.
Requirements
- Engineering Leadership Experience: 7+ years leading software engineering teams including managers and/or multiple squads, with a proven record of shipping customer-facing products.
- Product Delivery Strength: Demonstrated ability to take complex roadmap goals from concept through launch, balancing scope, risk, timelines, and quality.
- Full-Stack or Backend Product Expertise: 8+ years building SaaS, platforms, or developer-facing products. Comfortable with modern backend stacks and pragmatic architectural decisions.
- Technical Fluency: Ability to go deep in system design and code when needed; experience with Go, Python, and/or TypeScript strongly preferred.
- Remote-First Operating Excellence: Experience building culture, accountability, and momentum across distributed teams.
- Process & Metrics Mindset: Strong use of delivery metrics (cycle time, throughput, escape defects, reliability, adoption), and experience improving team flow.
- Communication & Collaboration: Clear written and verbal communication, strong stakeholder management, and calm leadership through ambiguity.
Responsibilities
- Own Product Feature Delivery: Lead multiple engineering teams responsible for shipping new features and improving Runpod’s customer experience across console, APIs, and developer workflows. Ensure predictable, high-velocity execution.
- Translate Roadmap into Results: Partner with Program management, Product and GTM to shape strategy, define quarterly goals, and convert requirements into clear technical scopes, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
- Build a High-Output Org: Hire, mentor, and grow engineering managers and senior ICs. Create a culture of ownership, speed, and craft in a remote-first environment.
- Drive Cross-Functional Launch Excellence: Run feature lifecycle processes - discovery support, design/architecture reviews, build phases, QA and rollout plans, release comms, and post-launch iteration.
- Improve Engineering System & Flow: Establish and evolve standards for lifecycle management, sprint/kanban execution, code review, CI/CD quality gates, release safety, documentation, and retrospectives.
- Customer-Backed Prioritization: Ensure engineering work aligns to user impact and business value. Constantly leverage customer insights, product analytics, and operational data to refine priorities.
- Quality & Velocity Leadership: Balance speed and reliability by improving automated testing, staging/preview environments, observability for product surfaces, and regression prevention.
Other
- Successful completion of a background check.
- Preferred Qualifications: Experience building cloud or developer platforms, APIs, or workflow-heavy products used by technical customers.
- Expertise with AI/ML product surfaces such as job orchestration UX, model deployment flows, observability dashboards, or billing/usage systems.
- Track record of scaling product teams in high-growth environments.
- Open-source contributions or recognition with communities of developers.
