Director, Engineering

Coates Group • Chicago, IL

4d • $190,000 - $210,000

About The Position

For over almost 60 years, our solutions have enabled impactful connections between some of the world’s leading brands and their customers. And while we’ve already done a lot of work we’re proud of, we’re just getting started! Coates Group has the values of a family-owned business and the innovative spirit of a start-up, both which fuel our purpose – Creating Connections. Empowering Partnerships. Always Evolving . Through hard work, dedication and creativity, we’ve become industry leaders who have won awards and set records while remaining focused on continual growth and evolution. We are a 2x Australia Good Design Award winner and successfully completed the largest hardware deployment in Quick Service Restaurant history. We are curious, charismatic, authentic and we value and leverage the diversity of our crew. We are imaginers, kindness enthusiasts, experts, creators, thinkers, challengers, collaborators and over-achievers. And together, as a Crew, we are revolutionizing the way the world’s leading brands leverage technology to drive the best customer experiences. The Director, Engineering is accountable for enabling high-performing engineering squads to deliver reliable, maintainable, and high-quality software solutions. This role provides technical leadership, builds capability across engineers and technical leads, ensures adherence to engineering standards, and removes blockers that impede delivery, while partnering with Product, Delivery, and QA leadership to achieve business and customer outcomes.

Requirements

• 8+ years’ experience in software engineering, with 3+ years in an engineering leadership roles, managing engineers and technical leads
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience
• Proven experience delivering enterprise-scale software platforms or digital products within complex, client environments
• Strong hands-on background in modern full-stack software engineering, with deep experience in building highly scalable web applications supported by cloud-native or serverless architectures (AWS preferred), CI/CD pipelines, and distributed systems
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional engineering teams operating in agile or product-led delivery models
• Experience establishing and enforcing engineering standards, development practices, and delivery discipline across multiple squads
• Proven ability to manage a blended workforce, including permanent staff and staff-augmented delivery partners (onshore and offshore)
• Demonstrated experience in developing and executing plans that align with business objectives and growth

Responsibilities

• Engineering Enablement: Ensure squads have the technical capability, processes, and practices to deliver reliably, removing engineering blockers and supporting predictable outcomes in partnership with Delivery leadership.
• Engineering Leadership & Capability: Act as a chapter-style leader for engineers and technical leads, building capability, setting standards, and driving consistent engineering practices across squads.
• Technical Leadership, Debt & Design Quality: Ensure sound technical design and implementation, actively managing technical debt and addressing complexity.
• Quality in Delivery: Embed quality-by-design within engineering teams (e.g. testability, code quality, CI/CD discipline), while partnering with QA to achieve agreed quality outcomes.
• Platform Health & Operability: Own the operational health of systems within scope, ensuring reliability, performance, and readiness across production and pre-production environments.
• People & Partner Leadership: Lead and develop permanent and partner engineers (onshore and offshore), including performance management, engagement, and effective integration.
• Delivery Flow & Dependencies: Enable squads to operate autonomously by removing engineering blockers, managing dependencies, and improving delivery flow in partnership with Product and Delivery.

Benefits

• annual market competitive bonus program
• “Thrive Program” which includes a suite of flexible work options
• dedicated time to prioritize our health and wellbeing (think virtual Yoga or meditation sessions)
• Global Wellness paid day off to recharge
• “Give Back Day” to allow our Crew an opportunity to make an impact in the community

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director