Associate Director - Technology

About the Role
We are an early-stage startup looking for a hands-on technology leader to build and scale our product and engineering function. This is a builder role requiring strong technical depth, execution ownership, and the ability to work directly with founders to take products from concept to scale.The ideal candidate should be equally comfortable discussing product strategy, writing production code, designing architecture, integrating AI capabilities, and building engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

Technology & Product Leadership

1. Own end-to-end technology strategy, architecture, product engineering, and execution.
2. Partner closely with founders to translate business goals into product and technology roadmaps.
3. Drive rapid product development while building scalable foundations.

Hands-on Engineering Leadership

1. Actively contribute to production code, architecture reviews, and technical implementation.
2. Lead development across frontend, backend, APIs, infrastructure, and integrations.
3. Build MVPs quickly and evolve them into scalable systems.
4. Drive engineering quality, release management, and delivery execution.

AI Integration & Automation

1. Lead AI-first product development initiatives.
2. Design and implement integrations with LLMs, AI agents, copilots, RAG systems, and workflow automation tools.
3. Evaluate and integrate AI models, APIs, vector databases, and orchestration frameworks.
4. Build AI-enabled customer experiences and internal productivity tools.
5. Stay current with emerging AI tooling and ecosystem developments.

Team Building

1. Hire, mentor, and scale the founding engineering team.
2. Establish engineering culture, coding standards, and development processes.
3. Build an ownership-driven, execution-focused technology organization.

Must-Have Technical Skills
AI & Emerging Tech, Strong experience integrating AI platforms and APIs, Hands-on experience with: OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini ecosystems, LLM integrations and prompt orchestration, RAG architectures, Agent workflows and AI automation, Vector databases and semantic search, AI product implementation, Full-Stack Engineering, Frontend, React / Next.js, TypeScript, Modern UI frameworks and frontend architecture, Responsive web applications and performance optimization, Backend, Node.js / Python / Java (any strong backend stack), REST APIs, microservices, event-driven systems, Database design and optimization, Cloud & Platform, AWS / GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, DevOps and observability

Candidate Profile

1. 6 - 10+ years of engineering experience with startup exposure.
2. Prior experience building products in startup / high-growth environments.
3. Strong hands-on coding capability; not purely managerial.
4. Full-stack mindset with ability to work across frontend, backend, and infrastructure.
5. Experience building AI-enabled products preferred.
6. Comfortable operating in ambiguity and fast-paced environments.

Preferred Background
Former founder / founding engineer / early engineering leader.
Experience taking products from 0→1 and scaling.
Prior experience in SaaS, AI, B2B platforms, marketplaces, or digital products.