Overview
Position: Director, Software Engineering (AI)
Pay: $170K-190K/yr D.O.E. *Actual compensation may vary from posting based on geographic location, work experience, education, and/or skill level.
Location: Remote OK - If living within 31 miles of Santa Ana, CA or Austin, TX will need to be able to work a hybrid schedule
Disclaimer: Identity Verification checks are in place throughout the Candidate journey to prevent candidate fraud.
In-person Interview Required
Position Summary
The Director of Engineering is responsible for leading and evolving NAF’s artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven engineering capabilities. This role focuses on translating AI strategy into scalable, secure, and high-quality platforms that deliver measurable business value. The Director partners closely with Product, Data, Architecture, and senior leadership to guide AI-first technical direction, ensure predictable delivery, and develop high-performing engineering leaders and teams. This role blends hands-on technical leadership with organizational ownership, serving as the accountable leader for AI engineering outcomes across the enterprise.
Responsibilities
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
- Leadership and Mentoring
- Lead, mentor, and scale AI-focused engineering teams, including engineering managers and senior engineers.
- Establish and track OKRs, engineering metrics, and quality standards for AI initiatives.
- Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
- Serve as a point of contact for offshore or distributed AI team hiring and collaboration.
- Partner closely with Product and Data leaders to translate AI capabilities into measurable business outcomes.
- Remove organizational and technical impediments that block execution.
- Manage engineering budgets, capacity planning, and resource allocation for AI initiatives.
- Support performance management, career development, and succession planning for engineering leaders.
- Be present and engaged with teams, providing guidance on vision, execution, and organizational effectiveness.
- Technical Leadership
- Define and execute AI engineering strategy aligned with business objectives and product roadmaps.
- Drive adoption of modern AI architectures, including machine learning systems, generative AI, and intelligent automation.
- Oversee the design and evolution of scalable, secure, and reliable AI platforms and services.
- Ensure predictable, high-quality delivery of AI features, platforms, and enhancements.
- Identify, communicate, and mitigate technical, delivery, operational, and security risks.
- Collaborate closely with Architects to evaluate, introduce, and adopt new tools, frameworks, and platforms.
- Champion modern engineering practices, including CI/CD, MLOps, automated testing, and observability.
- Present new AI technologies, tools, and approaches for evaluation and adoption.
- Ensure responsible, secure, and compliant use of AI technologies.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline.
- 10+ years of experience in software engineering, including data-intensive or AI-adjacent systems.
- 5+ years of experience leading engineering teams and managers.
- Demonstrated experience delivering AI, machine learning, or data-driven platforms in production environments.
- Strong understanding of AI/ML system architecture, data pipelines, and model lifecycle management.
- Experience guiding adoption of generative AI, predictive models, or intelligent automation.
- Proven ability to lead distributed or offshore teams.
- Excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills.
- Strong troubleshooting skills with the ability to assess complex systems and architectures quickly.
- Experience with modern backend and frontend technologies (e.g., .NET/C#, Java, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript).
- Experience with cloud platforms such as Azure, GCP, and/or AWS, including scalable AI workloads.
- Familiarity with DevOps and MLOps pipelines, CI/CD practices, and automated testing strategies.
- Knowledge of security, privacy, and compliance considerations for AI and data platforms.
- Ability to stay current with evolving AI technologies and apply them pragmatically.
- Experience in highly regulated industries (e.g., financial services or fintech) preferred.
- Demonstrated success scaling teams, platforms, and AI capabilities in growth environments.
- Familiarity with Message Based Software Architecture is a plus.
- Domain Driven Design (DDD) knowledge or experience
- Knowledge of Back End and Front-End application structures
- Experience with Persistent storage, RDBMS, Blob, NoSQL, is a plus
- 3rd Party Saas Integration experience is a plus
Pay Transparency Disclosure
If based in New American Funding’s offices, this role has the annual base salary range stated below.
Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience, potential impact, and scope of role), market demands, and specific work location. The listed range is a guideline, and the range for this role may be modified. For roles that are available to be filled remotely, the pay range is localized according to employee work location by a factor of between 80% and 100% of range. Please discuss your specific work location with your recruiter for more information.
New American Funding offers a competitive package of additional benefits, including health, dental & vision, retirement with company contribution, parental leave, mental health & wellness benefits, and generous PTO. New American Funding also offers sales incentive pay for most sales roles and an annual bonus plan for eligible non-sales roles. New American Funding’s compensation and benefits are subject to change and may be modified in the future.
Work Authorization: Must be able to verify identity and employment eligibility to work in the U.S.
Other Duties: This job profile is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of job duties and responsibilities, as one may perform additional related duties as assigned in order to meet the needs of the organization.
Physical Demands: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Must be able to lift up to ten pounds. Primary functions require sufficient physical ability and mobility to work in an office setting; to stand or sit for prolonged periods of time; to occasionally stoop, bend, kneel, crouch, reach, and twist; to lift, carry, push, and/or pull light to moderate amounts of weight; to operate office equipment requiring repetitive hand movement and fine coordination including use of a keyboard; and to verbally communicate to exchange information. VISION: See in the normal visual range with or without correction. HEARING: Hear in the normal audio range with or without correction.
[EOE/M/F/D/V. Drug-free workplace.]
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