Director of Engineering

Smule • Salt Lake City, UT

5d • Hybrid

About The Position

Smule is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead teams building scalable, reliable, and AI-powered consumer experiences for our global community. This leader will play a key role in accelerating Smule’s transformation into an AI-first engineering organization, driving innovation, technical excellence, and operational performance across critical product and platform initiatives. The ideal candidate combines strong technical leadership, a passion for emerging AI technologies, and a proven track record of building high-performing teams and consumer products at scale.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a closely related technical field.
• 8+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including technical leadership and people management responsibilities.
• 3+ years leading engineering teams, including Software Engineers, Technical Leads, and/or Engineering Managers.
• Strong AI fluency, including practical experience applying AI-assisted development, automation, machine learning, deep learning, or AI-powered product capabilities.
• Proven experience building, scaling, and operating high-volume consumer-facing products and services.
• Strong technical depth in one or more areas such as mobile engineering, backend systems, cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, AI/ML platforms, or platform engineering.
• Experience driving engineering transformation initiatives, including AI adoption, developer productivity improvements, automation, or platform modernization.
• Deep understanding of modern software development practices, including agile delivery, CI/CD, testing automation, observability, and operational excellence.
• Demonstrated ability to balance speed, quality, scalability, reliability, and business priorities.
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and cross-functional leadership skills.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field.
• Experience building AI-powered consumer features, deep learning systems, recommendation systems, personalization platforms, audio/video technology, or creator tools.
• Experience working with globally distributed engineering organizations.
• Passion for music, creativity, and social connection.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering teams and managers to deliver product and platform roadmaps with high execution quality, operational reliability, and team performance.
• Drive Smule’s AI-first engineering practices by embedding AI-assisted development, automation, machine learning/deep learning systems, and modern developer productivity tools into daily engineering workflows.
• Evaluate and adopt emerging AI, deep learning, and software engineering technologies that improve product innovation, platform scalability, and engineering productivity.
• Partner with Product, Design, Data, Research, and technical leaders on roadmap planning, prioritization, release execution, AI initiatives, platform modernization, and technical debt reduction.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards for architecture, code quality, testing, security, documentation, observability, and production readiness.
• Define and track engineering KPIs for delivery velocity, product quality, system reliability, operational health, and team effectiveness.
• Build and develop high-performing engineering teams through hiring, coaching, performance management, succession planning, and leadership development.
• Lead operational reviews, incident follow-ups, and continuous improvements to engineering execution, reliability, and readiness.

Benefits

• Flexible time off
• 12 observed holidays
• Robust benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, and supplemental insurance at low or no cost to you, starting on your first day
• Employer-paid life and short-term disability insurance
• Employer contributions to employee HSA accounts
• Well-being subscriptions, including Headspace and Wellhub
• Cell phone and internet reimbursement to support hybrid work
• Home office stipend to help create your ideal workspace

What This Job Offers

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