Director of Engineering

Compass•Boston, MA

7d•$275,310 - $305,900

About The Position

Compass is seeking an experienced Director of Engineering to lead engineering for its brands’ consumer websites and apps. The role leads a multi-team organization across the U.S. and internationally, delivering distinct brand experiences on shared platforms. Its scope includes home search and the consumer experience across compass.com, brand web and mobile platforms, international sites, and growth levers such as SEO, conversion, and lead capture. Reporting to the VP of Software Engineering, the Director will set the multi-year engineering vision in partnership with Product, Design, brand leaders, and executive leadership. The role is accountable for platform strategy, engineering quality and operational performance, organizational design and development, investment decisions, and the evaluation and adoption of emerging technology, including AI. The Director will work across nine brands serving consumers in 120 countries and territories, and help connect buyers and sellers with real estate agents through effective consumer experiences.

Requirements

10+ years of engineering leadership, including 6+ years leading managers.
Track record of building distributed organizations that deliver effectively without the leader being directly involved in every decision.
12+ years in software engineering, with deep expertise in modern web and mobile architecture for consumer products used by millions.
Experience with relevant technology landscapes, including TypeScript and React, Node.js, Java, Go, Python, headless content management, and cloud-native containerized infrastructure on AWS.
Proven record of improving consumer growth metrics such as organic traffic, conversion, and engagement through technical SEO at scale, programmatic pages, sub-second page performance, Core Web Vitals, AI-powered search visibility, and high-velocity experimentation.
Experience building shared platforms and design systems for multiple brands or markets, including international launches.
High standards for reliability, web performance, and accessibility, with operational rigor to uphold them across an organization.
Experience shipping AI-powered consumer experiences, such as personalization, generative content, or computer vision, and using AI to improve engineering team productivity.
Ability to translate technical strategy into business outcomes for executives and manage budgets, vendors, and delivery partners with discipline.
Demonstrated ability to hire and develop leaders and make talent decisions fairly and with emotional intelligence.

Nice To Haves

Experience in real estate, marketplaces, or multi-brand consumer businesses.

Responsibilities

Set the multi-year engineering vision and technical strategy for the brands’ consumer websites and apps, partnering with Product, Design, brand leaders, and executive leadership.
Own the investment case for consumer engineering strategy and align it with executive leadership.
Improve consumer acquisition and engagement by designing pages around consumer needs, using data and experimentation, and turning visits into connections with agents.
Develop a platform strategy that supports distinct brand identities and international markets without duplicating foundational work.
Set organization-wide standards for quality, reliability, performance, and accessibility; hold managers accountable and oversee the organization’s response to incidents.
Manage organizational spending across cloud, vendors, contractors, technical debt, and keep-the-lights-on work; make investment tradeoffs and hold delivery partners to standards.
Define how the organization evaluates emerging technology and sponsor promising initiatives, including AI in consumer experiences and engineering workflows.
Hire and develop managers and senior engineers, structure teams, plan succession, and cultivate ownership, trust, and continuous improvement.
Align leaders across Product, Design, Marketing, brands, and peer engineering teams, particularly when priorities compete.