Sr. Director, Engineering - Application Platform

About Highspot Highspot is pioneering the category that is fundamentally changing the way companies increase sales productivity. On a mission to transform the way millions of people work with sales enablement, Highspot is committed to building breakthrough software with a spark of magic. We believe a great place to work is about more than the work – it’s about what the company stands for, and how it authentically represents its values in the real world. To this end, we have put intentional focus on creating equitable workspaces for each of our employees. Our goal is to create a culture where everyone feels a deep sense of belonging and is empowered to be an agent of change, with the ability to transform themselves, their workplace, and their world.

About the Role  As the Director of Software Engineering for the Platform team at Highspot, you will inspire, lead, and grow a team of creative and talented engineers to deliver Highspot’s underlying frontend and backend platform. The platform team provides the underlying set of libraries, patterns, architecture, and standards that can be reused and shared across our entire codebase. This allows us to deliver on our vision of a unified platform for sales enablement and provide value to customers quickly and with high quality. You’ll bring your technical expertise and proven people management skills to bear on strategic decisions about our technical ecosystem, department operations, team norms, and engineering culture. You’ll also be a key member of the broader Product leadership team and a key decision-maker within your product area.

What You'll Do

• Lead a team of engineers and managers, through whom you’ll execute on the strategic direction of your product area, inspiring and motivating teams to do their best work
• Build and run Highspot’s frontend and backend platform. This platform provides the basis upon which Highspot is built
• Ensure the platform's scalability, reliability, and performance
• Oversee the development and maintenance of reusable libraries, patterns, and standards
• Ensure the platform supports and accelerates the delivery of features across the entire codebase
• Effectively collaborate with key partners in your product area, including Designers, Product Managers, and TPMs
• Uphold and build upon Highspot’s culture, ensuring that Engineering is a welcoming, inclusive place, and that we not only meet our DE&I goals but lead Seattle’s tech industry with our commitment to diversity
• Bring your technical expertise to bear as you work closely with the Architects team to manage the evolution of Highspot’s software; ensure that our architecture and stack are optimized to keep pace with the demands of hyper-growth; position your product area (and support adjacent product areas) for continued high-availability and reliability across multiple worldwide data centers
• Deeply understand the strategic value and the market opportunity of your product area; leverage your expertise to define KPIs and growth plans for your organization
• Create a collaborative environment where all levels of engineers can contribute in meaningful ways
• Partner with the Services team to understand what drives customer joy in your product area and ensure your team works to address customer concerns in a timely manner
• Partner with Architects team and CISO to design and implement proactive security postures for customer- and internal-facing systems
• Advocate for the tools, process, and resources the core dev team needs to enable their ongoing success and unlock their ability to innovate
• Mentor and guide the professional and technical development of the managers and engineers on your team
• Define clear roles and responsibilities that ensure efficient decision-making, careful analysis of trade-offs, and a responsible balance of strategic business objectives, unique customer needs, operational necessities, and product quality
• Ensure architects, stakeholders, and SMEs are appropriately involved in decisions
• Ensure decisions are communicated within and outside team
• Enforce accountability through empathetic, relevant, and objective performance targets and timely feedback and coaching
• Advise the broader Product leadership team on the relative costs and benefits of various projects competing for Engineering resources

Your Background

• Minimum of 10 years in senior engineering leadership roles, including managing engineering managers, and recent experience in the B2B SaaS industry
• An academic background in Computer Science or related discipline, or equivalent experience
• Extensive experience developing and scaling cloud-native applications and infrastructure
• A background in building frontend and backend platforms
• Proven success in attracting and retaining top engineering talent from diverse backgrounds
• Proven success as a partner and collaborator who prioritizes the success of the team over individual aspirations
• Entrepreneurial spirit, priding yourself on getting things done with a high level of quality
• Previous experience designing and building software products at scale
• Deep understanding of the SDLC for SaaS applications
• Working knowledge of modern object-oriented and functional programming languages
• Experience building software in a dynamic language such as Ruby or Python