Director of Engineering, Chalk

• 10+ years of engineering experience with 5+ years of engineering management
• Experience managing managers, or a clear readiness to build and lead a multi-layer organization
• Previous experience at an early-stage startup
• Experience building production ML systems or data infrastructure
• Strong programming skills and systems thinking — you understand how things work under the hood, and you stay close to the technology
• Proven ability to lead through others: hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineers and engineering leaders
• Executive-level communicator who can bridge technical, business, and customer contexts
• Track record of delivering complex, high-stakes projects and scaling teams through rapid growth
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Desirable

• Working directly with our founders, you'll serve as the engineering site lead for our New York office
• You'll start by directly managing individual contributor engineers and tech leads, and as we scale the team, you'll hire and develop engineering managers beneath you — building the leadership layer of our NYC organization from the ground up
• This is a rare opportunity to define the technical strategy, organizational structure, and engineering culture of a fast-growing AI infrastructure startup
• You'll collaborate with brilliant folks, including Putnam and Advent of Code winners, former Jane Street quants, and Rust compiler contributors — all dedicated to bending the curve of what's possible in AI inference
• Serve as the engineering site lead for New York, with ownership of all NYC engineering
• Directly manage engineers building Chalk's data platform, and hire and grow engineering managers as the site scales
• Partner with the founding team to set technical strategy and shape our long-term product and platform roadmap
• Design the organizational structure, hiring plan, and leadership pipeline for a rapidly growing engineering site
• Establish engineering processes and operating rhythms that enable high velocity without sacrificing quality
• Work directly with customers and executives to understand requirements and ensure Chalk's platform solves real-world ML challenges
• Define and champion Chalk's engineering culture in New York — you'll set the bar for how we attract, develop, and retain top talent