Director, Engineering

Blackhawk Network•Pleasanton, CA

5d•$222,120 - $310,980•Hybrid

About The Position

In the Financial Transactions group, we focus on high transaction volume combined with low latency to give the highest performing financial network that is possible. This role will focus on modernizing our core financial switch and routing capabilities; enabling network growth through modern API development; focus on detail for proprietary network controls, issuance capabilities, and the best-in-class fraud and risk systems. Global reach requires a global role. This role will have teams and partnerships all over the world. We are the network that enables stored value transactions to occur everywhere customers want to interact with our brands. We enable stored value products and money-movement across all currencies and denominations. We bring state-of-the-art products to the hands of millions of customers. Customer first, Technology second. We focus on always-on infrastructure, prioritizing customer access to their funds over everything, helping drive our zero-impact delivery goals.

Requirements

12+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles of increasing scope
Proven experience managing managers — building and developing teams through other leaders
Background in payments, fintech, e-commerce, or high-transaction-volume platforms strongly preferred
Track record of delivering large-scale distributed systems to production with high availability requirements
5+ years working in Agile environments with geographically distributed teams
Deep expertise in Java (11+), Spring Boot, and distributed systems design
Strong command of API design (REST/GraphQL), microservices, and event-driven architecture
Cloud-native development and operations on AWS
RDBMS, SQL, data design, and transactionality (ACID); familiarity with NoSQL
PCI-DSS compliance, tokenization, and security architecture
Observability tooling (New Relic, Splunk, or equivalent) and CI/CD pipeline ownership
Familiarity with service mesh, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and infrastructure-as-code
Strong communication and cross-team collaboration skills
Experience mentoring engineers and driving technical decision-making across teams
Proven ability to balance technical excellence with business requirements and delivery timelines
Track record of successful cross-functional collaboration in fast-paced environments
Ability to translate ambiguous business goals into clear technical direction and measurable outcomes
Systems thinking approach to complex technical challenges
Customer-focused mindset with understanding of user experience implications
Data-driven decision making and commitment to measurable results
Passion for building scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions
We seek candidates who not only demonstrate curiosity and adaptability in emerging technologies but have also successfully implemented and utilized AI tools to enhance their work, improve processes, or deliver measurable results. Our teams embrace continuous learning and the thoughtful integration of AI to create meaningful impact – for our employees and the future of work.

Responsibilities

Lead and develop a team of engineers through a leadership team, setting clear expectations, fostering growth, and building a culture of accountability and collaboration.
Partner closely with your peer Engineering Leaders, Lead Engineers, Product Management, and Technical Program Managers to align roadmaps and deliver cross-functional outcomes.
Champion talent development — hiring, mentoring, performance management, and succession planning across your organization.
Serve as a visible technical leader within BHN's broader Product & Technology organization, contributing to architecture forums, cross-team initiatives, and engineering culture.
Help steer the technical direction for large-scale distributed backend systems
Drive platform modernization — evolving from monolithic or legacy patterns toward API-first, cloud-native architectures on AWS.
Establish and enforce engineering best practices: API design standards, code quality, CI/CD pipelines, observability, incident response, and post-mortem culture.
Accountable for platform reliability, scalability, performance, and security across production systems that process high transaction volumes.
Ensure all platform solutions meet PCI-DSS, enterprise security, and regulatory requirements including tokenization, sandboxed architectures, and access controls.
Partner with Payments+, Fraud/Risk, and InfoSec teams to proactively identify and remediate security and compliance risks.
Define and track meaningful engineering metrics — velocity, quality, uptime, and team health — and use data to drive continuous improvement.
Build repeatable processes for onboarding, knowledge management, and operational runbooks that scale with team growth.
Manage competing priorities effectively in a fast-paced environment, balancing near-term delivery with long-term platform investment