Director of Engineering - Quality, Reliability & Architecture

COMPANY: Canoe Intelligence
WEBSITE: https://canoeintelligence.com/
TITLE: Director of Engineering - Quality, Reliability & Architecture
LOCATION: New York City (hybrid) or Fully Remote in the United States
SALARY: $200,000 - $230,000 (based on NYC, will be adjusted for geo)
The Role:
Startups forming today with AI-native processes will out-execute traditional engineering teams by 10x. We need someone who gets this viscerally-not theoretically-and can lead our transformation. You'll lead three critical functions (QA, SRE, Architecture) through a fundamental reimagining of how we build software. This isn't just about adding tools to existing processes-it's about rebuilding our entire approach around AI-human collaboration. Your mission is to deliver exceptional value to our clients by ensuring our systems are not just functional at launch, but also performant, reliable, and secure as they scale - and in a way optimized for how the software of tomorrow is built.
What You'll Do:

• Architectural Vision: Participate in the Architecture Review Board (ARB), ensuring all architecture decisions are optimized for resilience, flexibility, and speed of iteration.
• Make Everyone Faster with AI: Your #1 job is practical AI implementation that delivers immediate velocity gains.
• Revolutionary QA Transformation: Lead the product and engineering team through a complete identity shift as they stop manually writing requirements, code, and tests; instead relying on agentic tools for specification-driven development and automated verifications.
• Proactive Production Quality: Build observability that finds bugs before customers do. Move from reactive incident management to predictive reliability.
• Lead Through Influence: Drive this transformation across all teams without formal authority. You're a change agent who can overcome organizational inertia, build coalitions, and make the AI-native approach so compelling that folks adopt it enthusiastically.

What We're Looking For:

• Systems Expertise: Demonstrated ability to architect and deliver scalable, production-ready systems.
• Pragmatic Problem-Solver: You've actually implemented engineering workflows using Claude Code or similar tools to ship production code by breaking down complex problems into pragmatic solutions.
• Change Agent: Track record of driving organizational change against resistance through clear, data-driven communication.
• Incident Management: Strong experience with on-call leadership and retrospectives with a strong understanding of security and governance principles.
• User Experience Focus: Deep understanding that velocity without quality is meaningless; passionate about delivering value through a trustworthy, reliable product.
• Engineering Leadership: Experience managing managers and leading through influence, building coalitions.

Preferred:

• Hands-on experience with our core technologies (or similar stacks): Python, Typescript, PHP/Laravel, Kafka, AWS, Terraform, PostgreSQL, Redis, ElasticSearch
• Breadth of experience with CI/CD automation and developer tooling.
• Experience defining and reporting exec‑level KPIs on quality and reliability.

What You'll Get:

• Medical, dental, vision benefits
• Flexible PTO
• 401(k)
• Flexible work from home policy
• Home office stipend
• Employee Assistance Program
• Gym/Wifi reimbursement
• Education assistance
• Parental Leave

Our Values:

• Client First -> Listen, and deliver client-centric solutions
• Be An Owner -> Take initiative, improve situations, drive positive outcomes
• Excellence -> Always set the highest standard for yourself and others
• Win Together -> 1 + 1 = 3

Who We Are:
Canoe is reimagining alternative investment data processes for hundreds of leading institutional investors, capital allocators, asset servicing firms and wealth managers. By combining industry expertise with the most sophisticated data capture technologies, Canoe's technology automates the highly-frustrating, time-consuming, and costly manual workflows related to alternative investment document and data management, extraction and delivery. With Canoe, clients can refocus capital and human resources on business performance and growth, increase efficiency, and gain deeper access to their data. Canoe's AI-driven platform was developed in 2013 for Portage Partners LLC, a private investment firm.
Canoe is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment including the decision to hire, promote, discipline, or discharge, will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.