Director of Engineering Operations & Strategy, Metropolis

• The ideal candidate thrives in uncertainty, takes full ownership of outcomes, and brings a unique blend of hands-on technical grounding and high-intensity strategic experience
• 6+ years in high-intensity, rigorous environments 2+ years of hands-on working engineering experience in software or similar engineering roles
• A demonstrated history of working relentlessly to get hard things done: someone who runs through walls rather than around them. This intensity often comes from backgrounds like top-tier management consulting, investment banking, or strategic finance, but we care about the trait itself, not the pedigree: what matters is a track record of outworking a problem because you genuinely care about the outcome
• Proven experience leading a strategic function with significant autonomy, managing resources, and taking full ownership of organizational outcomes
• Exceptional ability to build trust with technical teams and influence without authority
• Experience owning meaningful budget or resource decisions within a high-growth or complex organization, with a bias toward action over waiting for perfect information
• Track record of operating effectively in fast-moving, high-ambiguity environments, making sound decisions without complete data
• Exceptional ability to synthesize complex operational or technical concepts into clear rationale for senior and C-level stakeholders
• Skilled at translating high-level business goals into concrete plans of execution that account for broad organizational impact
• Proven excellence at leveraging AI tools and frameworks to optimize technology operations, technical evaluations, and cross-functional workflows

Desirable

• Metropolis is seeking a Director, Engineering Operations & Strategy to own technology strategy, operational leadership, and strategic problem-solving across our engineering organization
• In this role, you will lead with high autonomy, managing a multi-million dollar engineering budget, cutting through deeply complex problems, exhibiting exceptional leadership without authority, and defining simple, scalable solutions to challenging problems at a hyper growth company
• You will partner directly with senior leadership to execute M&A due diligence, streamline shared technical processes, and navigate high-stakes operational challenges
• Own shared processes across the engineering department, including hiring workflows, onboarding, and training, to keep practices consistent as the org scales
• Cut through deeply complex, multifaceted operational challenges to deliver simple, actionable solutions without waiting for top-down instruction
• Direct and manage a $50M a $100million+ P&L budget, coordinating resources to align with high-level corporate objectives
• Own hardware and service forecasting for critical vendors (AWS, Twilio, and similar), maintaining ongoing visibility into spend trends and flagging risks or opportunities before they become urgent
• Own emerging strategic decisions for the engineering organization — M&A due diligence, major vendor migrations, and similar high-stakes calls — in close partnership with senior executives
• Build alignment at the highest levels of leadership, navigating the nuances of multi-stakeholder decisions on multifaceted or high-risk initiatives
• Keep teams unblocked and moving forward rapidly, demonstrating comfort acting with incomplete information as long as directionally correct
• Leverage curiosity and formal methodologies to break down cross-functional silos, challenge status-quo assumptions, and drive cross-team alignment
• Forecast operational trends and deliver strategic recommendations that favor proactive disruption over routine maintenance
• Own all vendor management across the engineering organization, from contract negotiation and renewals to performance accountability and day-to-day vendor relationships