Lead Engineer

Lead Engineer (Engineering Lead)

Location: Fully Remote (US) • Headquarters: Arlington, VA Reporting to: Director of Engineering

Role Overview

You will be a hands-on Engineering Lead and the technical owner of an autonomous squad responsible for end-to-end delivery of a core product platform. The team is transitioning from a single engineering group into multiple squads aligned to key product areas.

You will spend ~90% of your time writing production code and ~10% coordinating/technically leading the squad. You will partner closely with Product Management to turn business goals into working systems and maintain production reliability.

Key Responsibilities

• Own technical direction, delivery, and operational health for the squad’s product area (single-threaded ownership).
• Write production code daily and contribute to critical-path features, core libraries, and infrastructure.
• Prototype rapidly for new capabilities, then harden for production (e.g., AI-powered translation pipelines, Twilio integrations, new API surfaces).
• Integrate AI tools responsibly into the engineering workflow (e.g., AI-assisted IDEs/Copilot and automation), while keeping human code authorship central.
• Partner with Product Management to translate business requirements into technical plans.
• Own squad execution: sprint planning, backlog grooming, and delivery commitments.
• Perform rigorous code reviews and mentor engineers; raise the quality bar for code, testing, and documentation.
• Own CI/CD, deployment, and monitoring, including automated testing, build pipelines, and observability.
• Manage external development partners to ensure output meets standards for quality, security, and architecture.

Initial Scope

• Initially owns the Connectus platform, a recently launched language access product currently migrating active customers.
• Built on a mature TypeScript/React cloud-native stack.

Requirements / Qualifications

• Deep ability to lead architecture and delivery for a domain while staying heavily hands-on.
• Experience shipping production software end-to-end (prototype to production).
• Strong software engineering practices: code quality, testing, documentation, and rigorous code reviews.
• Ownership of CI/CD, deployments, and production monitoring/observability.
• Capability to mentor and technically lead engineers and manage expectations through outcomes.
• Ability to integrate third-party systems and evolve APIs based on product needs.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience integrating AI-powered workflows into development practices.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot / AI IDE assistance / automation via integrations).
• Experience working with external contractors/partners on code contributions.