Technical Director

Details

Over 7,500 companies — from scrappy startups to global brands — use Customer.io to send billions of emails, push notifications, in-app messages, and SMS every day. The platform powers automated communication built from real-time behavioral data. Under the hood, Go, React, Ember, and AI help the team ship fast and scale with confidence.

Location: Americas (Remote)

This role is an experienced technical leader position for someone who thrives in ambiguity, loves shipping new things, and brings deep technical perspective to early product bets. You will lead strategy, architecture, and execution on high-impact projects as an individual contributor, reporting to the CTO and working closely with a small, highly collaborative team.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build new capabilities from scratch and guide them through scale
• Prototype smarter product experiences using modern AI tools (LLMs, agents, embeddings, etc.)
• Lead technical strategy and decision-making on early-stage product bets
• Partner across disciplines to define what to build and why
• Write production code, shape architecture, and tell the story in a way others can follow
• Set up long-term success through clean handoffs, great documentation, and strong technical vision
• Influence without authority by driving big ideas forward from an IC seat

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years in founder, principal, or staff technical leadership roles
• Proven ability to take projects from concept to launch and transition them into durable systems
• Deep expertise in cloud-native architecture, distributed systems, and backend infrastructure
• Experience building with or meaningfully evaluating modern AI tooling (LLMs, agents, embeddings, etc.)
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and strong architectural thinking
• A high-context thinker who moves fast, makes good calls, and ships with care

Compensation & Benefits

• Starting salary: $235,000 – $260,000 USD (or equivalent in local currency), depending on experience and subject to market rate adjustment
• 100% coverage of medical, dental, vision, mental health, and supplemental insurance premiums for you and your family
• 16 weeks paid parental leave
• Unlimited PTO
• Stipends for remote work and wellness
• Professional development budget

Interview Process

• Application review
• Recruiter call (30 mins)
• Behavioral interview with hiring manager (60 mins)
• Strategic leadership interview (60 mins)
• Take-home assignment: short retrospective on a project you’ve led
• Retrospective review call (60 mins)