Senior Director, Software Engineer

About the role

DataPelago, acquired by NetApp, is building a data-processing platform that brings high-performance compute closer to enterprise data for AI and analytics workloads. It operates with a focused, startup-style model while building a scalable business. The Senior Director of Engineering leads the engineering organization that defines, builds and delivers complex data and AI infrastructure software, with direct accountability for engineering execution, product quality and performance. The role is highly technical and involves architecture decisions, guiding senior engineers and building a strong team.

Key responsibilities

• Own end-to-end engineering delivery, from design through implementation, testing and production reliability.
• Provide technical leadership, design reviews and guidance on performance, scalability, security and system trade-offs, including accelerated computing.
• Turn product priorities and customer commitments into engineering plans with owners, milestones, dependencies, quality gates and measurable outcomes.
• Build a disciplined execution culture with high velocity, transparent progress and timely decisions.
• Recruit, coach and retain engineers and engineering leaders, define team structures, clarify decision rights and develop successors.
• Balance enterprise customer needs with maintainable architecture, technical debt reduction and platform investments.
• Partner with product management, architecture, Solution Architects and customer-facing teams to validate requirements and turn field feedback into engineering priorities.

Required profile

• Proven record of delivering sophisticated production software, with a strong foundation as a hands-on engineer, systems architect or technical leader.
• Track record of improving engineering delivery, software quality, operational reliability and performance in complex products.
• Ability to make tough architectural decisions, delegate effectively and empower strong engineers and managers.
• Experience in both an entrepreneurial engineering environment and a scaled enterprise organization is preferred.

Required skills

• Hardware-software co-design, distributed systems, performance engineering and large-scale data processing.
• GPU computing and acceleration, including CUDA or comparable GPU stacks.
• AI model processing frameworks such as PyTorch and TensorFlow.
• Vector processing, search and graph technologies, and familiarity with other AI accelerators such as TPU, IPU and LPU.

What we offer

• Target salary range of 266,050 to 396,000 USD, depending on location, qualifications, experience and education.
• Benefits that may include health insurance, life insurance, retirement or pension plans, paid time off, leave options, performance-based incentives, an employee stock purchase plan and/or restricted stock units.
• A hybrid working environment, with in-office expectations shared during recruitment.

Applications are submitted only through the company website; emailing employees, recruiters or HR personnel directly will not affect the application. Some hiring stages may use AI tools to help evaluate candidates.