Radical AI

Technology

DirectorofSoftwareEngineering

$237–350k New York, New York, United States FULL TIME
Market Sentiment
HIGH DEMAND

Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Director candidates.

The Brief

“Director of Software Engineering at Radical AI. Skills: Software engineering leadership, Team building, Technical direction, System architecture. Hire software engineers. Develop software engineers”

What You'll Achieve.

Stabilize engineering team; Grow engineering team; Achieve technical expansion; Deploy customers

Industry & Context.

Technology
Problems you'll solve

Debug production issues; Troubleshoot issues

Eligibility Requirements

In-person presence required

What They're Looking For.

Must Have

10+ years software engineering experience, 3+ years engineering management, 3+ years technical lead role, Write code, Review code, Systems thinking, Design complex distributed systems, Communicate system tradeoffs, Grow engineering teams, Stabilize engineering teams, Fluency in Go, Fluency in Python, Establish processes, Based in New York, Relocate to New York

Nice to Have

Hybrid cloud/on-prem deployments experience, Customer-site delivery experience, Robotics background, Automation background, Scientific computing background, Agentic systems familiarity, LLM workflows familiarity, AI-adjacent infrastructure familiarity, Containerization experience, Kubernetes experience, AWS experience, Infrastructure-as-code experience, Terraform experience, CloudFormation experience

What You'll Do.

Hire software engineers

Develop software engineers

Retain software engineers

Establish team rhythms

Conduct daily standups

Conduct planning meetings

Conduct retrospectives

Foster code review culture

Participate in architectural discussions

Participate in architectural decisions

Debug production issues

Shape software development roadmap

Translate business requirements

Translate scientific requirements

Develop technical strategy

Manage leadership discussions

Interface with product stakeholders

Interface with science stakeholders

Interface with hardware stakeholders

How You'll Work.

Team & Collaboration

Cross-functional stakeholders; Science stakeholders; Hardware stakeholders; Product stakeholders; Leadership discussions

Communication Scope

Whiteboard system design; Present roadmaps

Process & Methodology

Roadmap planning

Full Job Description

## Description Radical AI is replacing an R&D process that currently takes 10+ years and $100 million to produce a single discovery. Our self-driving lab platform combines AI with autonomous robotics to run experiments, analyze results, and iterate—continuously, without human bottlenecks. For industries like aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, manufacturing, semiconductors, and space, that means breakthroughs in weeks instead of years. We're a small, senior team, growing fast. This is a foundational hire. The Role We're looking for a Director of Software Engineering to build and lead the software engineering team as we scale. This is a player-coach role in the truest sense: you'll ship code every week while also owning the team's growth, culture, processes, and long-term technical direction. You'll report to our President and Co-Founder, and work closely with cross-functional stakeholders across science, hardware, and product. The immediate mandate is to stabilize and grow a talented but lean team during a period of rapid hiring and technical expansion — including near-term customer deployments that involve significant architectural challenges. This is not a role for someone who wants to delegate the hard technical problems. It's for someone who wants to be in the middle of them. ## What You Will Do Lead the team: Hire, develop, and retain a high-caliber software engineering team Establish the rhythms that make the team hum: standups, planning, retrospectives, code review culture Be the person your engineers grow with — technically and professionally Stay technical: Conduct daily code reviews; submit 1–3 PRs per week Drive and participate meaningfully in architectural discussions and decisions Maintain deep enough fluency with the stack to debug production issues, challenge proposals, and earn your engineers' respect Shape the roadmap: Build and own the long-term software development roadmap, in close partnership with our co-founder and the product team Translat

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