Director/VP of Software

Help define the future of hardware development by building a collaboration platform for circuit designs, enabling the next generation of smart vehicles, IoT devices, rockets, medical devices, robotics, and much more. At AllSpice, we're building the agile development environment for hardware designers, including a Git-friendly translation layer and automated CI/CD framework for native circuit designs — think GitHub/GitLab + Copilot for electronics. Read more about our latest Series A announcement here https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/23/allspices-platform-is-the-github-for-electrical-engineering-teams/! As Director/VP of Software, you will own AllSpice's product development strategy and execution while building and leading a growing engineering organization. This is a hands-on leadership role: roughly 60% management and strategic work, 40% individual contribution, reporting directly to the CTO. With ~3 technical team leads under your wing today, you need to be equally comfortable whiteboarding system architecture and jumping into a codebase alongside an engineer to solve difficult problems. If you are passionate about building great software, growing high-performing teams, and translating customer needs into shipped product, this role is for you. WHAT YOU'LL DO This is a high-impact role that comes with significant autonomy and requires a self-driven, strategic, and collaborative leader. You will own product development across the full stack — from our Go back-end and Rust parsing layer to our Vue/TypeScript front-end. STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND ARCHITECTURE - Own AllSpice's product development roadmap in close partnership with the CTO and Product Management - Make architectural decisions that balance speed, scalability, and technical quality across multiple teams - Align engineering priorities with business goals and customer needs, translating product requirements into clear technical plans - Evaluate build-vs-buy decisions and manage technical debt strategically PEOPLE MANAGEMENT AND TEAM BUILDING - Oversee and mentor ~5 technical team leads, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement - Hire, develop, and retain top engineering talent as the organization scales - Set team goals, define development processes, and drive operational cadence (sprints, standups, retrospectives) - Create growth paths for individual contributors and managers alike - Participate in code reviews, architecture discussions, and incident response when needed CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION - Serve as the primary connector between technical teams (Platform, Parsing, GenAI, Front-end), facilitating alignment and removing blockers - Partner closely with Infrastructure to ensure smooth deployments, performance, and reliability of production systems - Work with Customer Success and Sales to understand customer pain points and feed insights back into the development process - Represent Engineering in cross-functional planning, providing realistic timelines and trade-off analysis HANDS-ON ENGINEERING - Jump in with engineers to debug, prototype, and solve complex problems when needed — especially in areas spanning multiple teams - Drive end-to-end web performance analysis and optimization across the stack - Maintain a high standard of technical quality through architecture guidance, code review, and mentorship - Engage with open-source communities used in our software to upstream relevant changes and influence key decisions EXAMPLE PROJECTS - Analyze and improve end-to-end web performance: from server response times through rendering of complex CAD documents (100k+ elements) - Lead the development of a 3D rendering engine for PCBs - Architect scalable APIs and data models for CAD documents stored in Git repositories - Drive expansion of ECAD format support (e.g., LTSpice, KiCad, additional formats) - Guide the GenAI/DRCY team on integrating AI-powered design review deeper into the product, including PCB analysis and extended knowled