Platform Software Engineering Director (Remote)

Position Summary:

First Dollar is seeking a Platform Software Engineering Director to lead our growing team. This role is responsible for the full software development lifecycle, from conception to deployment. You will leverage your experience with front-end and back-end coding languages, software architecture and design patterns, development frameworks, and third-party libraries. The ideal candidate has a strong background leading teams that develop consumer-facing digital products in collaboration with product and design leaders. You should be creative, client-focused, a team player, organized, and able to thrive in a dynamic environment.

At First Dollar, we empower engineers to build a smarter health benefits platform, amplifying human expertise with AI tools. We seek engineers experienced in using AI responsibly to accelerate development, improve code quality, and solve complex problems efficiently.

Our engineering team values humans over code and fosters a culture of continuous learning, aiming to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Duties & Responsibilities:

• Provide design services, resource planning, work estimation, and coordination for multiple delivery teams as a member of the R&D/Product Leadership team.
• Lead a team of software and quality engineers to design, develop, and test applications (e.g., APIs, web apps) according to established standards.
• Collaborate with Product and Design Leaders to guide product delivery teams.
• Set short to medium-term technical direction and create plans to achieve goals.
• Participate in peer reviews of solution designs and code.
• Package and support the deployment of releases.
• Foster an inclusive environment that values diverse backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.
• Collaborate on architecture decisions to adapt and evolve with the organization's scaling business needs.
• Partner with other developers, product managers, and architects to plan, design, and deliver applications.
• Assess opportunities for application and process improvement, documenting rationale for team sharing.
• Adhere to high-quality development principles, delivering solutions on time and within budget.
• Ensure non-functional requirements (security, performance, maintainability, scalability, usability, reliability) are considered in solution architecture.
• Identify and automate solutions within an Agile framework to enhance developer experience and productivity.
• Stay abreast of emerging technologies, industry trends, and best practices in solution architecture and innovation.
• Contribute to defining and establishing benchmarks, metrics, and quality measures.
• Leverage AI as a power productivity multiplier, maintaining engineering judgment and ensuring AI-generated code meets quality standards.
• Maintain full code ownership, understanding, explaining, and supporting all AI-assisted code.
• Troubleshoot, debug, and upgrade software.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Provide direction, guidance, and support to the team, setting clear expectations and delegating tasks.
• Evaluate employee performance, provide feedback, conduct reviews, and identify areas for development.
• Identify high performers who consistently produce quality work.
• Remove barriers for the team, ensuring they have the necessary tools, resources, and context.
• Provide active coaching and develop individual development plans for team members.
• Overcome challenges and conflicts within the team or projects.
• Make decisions that balance various factors for the organization's success.
• Cultivate relationships with clients, partners, and other departments to facilitate collaboration.
• Recruit, interview, hire, and train new team members.

Qualifications:

• Education & Experience:
• 10+ years of experience in software or solution architecture roles, focusing on complex, enterprise-level solutions using cloud platforms.
• Strong knowledge of software architecture principles, design patterns, and architectural frameworks.
• Strong understanding of Continuous Delivery, Cloud foundational patterns, Observability patterns, and Developer experience patterns.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Practical AI experience (comfortable using tools like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or Claude).
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent experience.
• Technical Proficiency & Skills:
• Proficiency with: Node.js, React, TypeScript, Apollo GraphQL, Git, PostgreSQL, Google Cloud, Jest, Docker Containers, CI/CD Pipelines.
• Experience with one or more cloud platforms, preferably GCP.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.
• Great attention to detail and organizational skills.
• Experience delivering client-facing solutions (Web Portals, online payments, third-party integrations).
• Good understanding of Agile/Scrum methodology.
• Expertise in delivering secure, high-performance, fault-tolerant, and high-availability solutions.
• Experience with DevOps, GitHub, CI/CD, SecDevOps, Containers, Serverless.

Other Requirements:

• Infrequent travel (10%).
• Ability to occasionally work overtime or after hours.
• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.

Location:

Remote