This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Director, Software Engineering based in the United States.
We are seeking a hands-on engineering leader to guide the development of advanced, AI-enabled legal automation platforms that streamline complex legal operations workflows. This role combines technical leadership, software architecture, active coding, and team management to deliver secure, scalable, enterprise-grade solutions. You will shape the technical roadmap, drive engineering excellence, and oversee delivery from design through production. Working closely with product teams, legal operations experts, and executive stakeholders, you will translate complex business requirements into reliable software capabilities. You will also lead a geographically distributed team of inshore and offshore engineers, fostering collaboration, accountability, and consistent engineering standards across locations. This is an opportunity to influence the evolution of AI-powered legal technology while remaining deeply involved in technical decision-making and execution.
Accountabilities:
- Provide hands-on technical leadership by contributing to architecture and design reviews, reviewing code, troubleshooting complex issues, and writing code when needed, particularly for critical or high-risk projects.
- Establish and maintain engineering standards covering code quality, testing, security, documentation, and software development practices.
- Own the technical roadmap for AI-enabled legal automation platforms, including intelligent document handling, automated workflow steps, and emerging AI capabilities.
- Evaluate and introduce technologies, frameworks, and AI/ML tools that improve platform functionality, reliability, and development efficiency.
- Translate business and legal operations requirements into technical designs, development epics, sprint plans, and actionable engineering priorities.
- Lead Agile delivery processes, facilitate team ceremonies, manage backlogs, and ensure progress against roadmap commitments and client-facing milestones.
- Identify and resolve technical risks, delivery bottlenecks, and cross-functional dependencies before they affect project outcomes.
- Oversee production reliability, performance, and security, including multi-tenant data isolation and role-based access controls.
- Collaborate with product management, legal operations specialists, and client-facing teams to define platform priorities and align technical decisions with business needs.
- Communicate delivery progress, technical risks, and architectural trade-offs to executive leadership, and coordinate with external vendors and partners on relevant integrations.
- Manage a distributed team of software developers, engineers, and QA professionals across inshore and offshore locations, supporting overlapping working hours and effective handoffs.
- Recruit, onboard, mentor, and performance-manage team members while maintaining consistent expectations and engineering standards across locations.
- Develop an effective team structure and staffing strategy that balances senior technical leadership with distributed development capacity as the platform grows.
- Establish clear communication practices, documentation standards, and handoff processes to support collaboration across time zones and build an accountable engineering culture.
Requirements:
- At least 10 years of professional software development experience, including 4 or more years in a hands-on engineering leadership position such as Director, Senior Engineering Manager, or an equivalent role.
- Proven experience building and managing distributed engineering teams that combine inshore or onshore talent with offshore or nearshore developers.
- Strong, current technical expertise, with the ability to review and contribute to code and guide architectural decisions rather than focusing exclusively on people management.
- Demonstrated success delivering complex, multi-tenant, web-based enterprise software from initial architecture through production deployment.
- Solid knowledge of modern software architecture, RESTful APIs, relational databases such as PostgreSQL, cloud infrastructure, and secure multi-tenant systems with role-based access controls.
- Experience with Agile and Scrum methodologies, including sprint planning, backlog management, and release coordination.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to present technical strategy, delivery status, and trade-offs to executive stakeholders.
- A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- Experience in legal technology, legal operations, eDiscovery, or another regulated or compliance-driven enterprise software environment is preferred.
- Practical exposure to integrating AI/ML capabilities into software products, such as intelligent document classification, workflow automation, or large language model (LLM)-based features, is an advantage.
- Familiarity with workflow or business-process configuration engines that support configurable stages, tasks, and rules-based automation is desirable.
- Knowledge of single sign-on (SSO), identity integrations, audit and compliance logging, and enterprise security requirements is beneficial.
- Experience integrating with or migrating to project and issue-tracking platforms such as Jira, as well as working with CI/CD toolchains, is a plus.
- An advanced degree, such as a master's in Computer Science or a related field, is desirable.
- Relevant certifications in AWS, project management (PMP), or Agile frameworks such as Scrum or SAFe are advantageous.
Benefits:
- Remote work opportunity within the United States.
- The opportunity to lead engineering strategy and delivery for AI-enabled legal automation platforms.
- A hands-on leadership role combining software development, architecture, technical decision-making, and team development.
- The opportunity to work with cross-functional stakeholders and lead a geographically distributed engineering team.
How Jobgether works:
We use an AI-powered matching process to ensure your application is reviewed quickly, objectively, and fairly against the role's core requirements. Our system identifies the top-fitting candidates, and this shortlist is then shared directly with the hiring company. The final decision and next steps (interviews, assessments) are managed by their internal team.
We appreciate your interest and wish you the best!
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