Director of Software Engineering, Texas Institute of Electronics

University of Texas at Austin • Austin, TX

5d • Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Software Engineering will lead the architecture and implementation of a scalable AI infrastructure platform, managing a high-caliber engineering team to ensure performance, security, and reliability while collaborating cross-functionally to align engineering priorities with product goals. Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE) is a transformative, well-funded semiconductor foundry venture combining the agility of a startup with the scale of a national initiative. Our Mission A key part of our mission is to advance the state of the art in 3D heterogeneous integration (3DHI), chiplet-based architectures, and multi-component microsystems- catalyzing breakthroughs across microelectronics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, high-performance computing, and next-generation healthcare devices. Our Impact Backed by $1.4 billion in combined funding from DARPA, Texas state initiatives, and strategic partners, we are building foundational capabilities in advanced packaging and integrated design infrastructure to restore U.S. leadership in microelectronics manufacturing. Our Technology Our 3DHI and chiplet integration platforms integrate novel thermal management and advanced interconnect solutions to deliver unprecedented performance and energy efficiency. Operating at the intersection of defense electronics and commercial markets, TIE offers a rare opportunity to reimagine an industry from the ground up and build transformative products with global impact.

Requirements

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science or a related field; strong systems programming fundamentals.
• 8 or more years of experience in software engineering, with at least 3 years in a technical leadership or management role.
• Track record of building and deploying distributed backend systems that operate at scale, with a strong emphasis on system reliability and maintainability.
• Deep experience with containerized environments and orchestration, including Kubernetes, Helm, Docker, and related tooling.
• Fluency in modern backend programming languages such as Go, Rust, Python, or Java.
• Hands-on experience managing hybrid or on-prem enterprise software deployments, including troubleshooting networking, storage, and computer issues in real-world installations.
• Demonstrated ability to lead high-performance engineering teams, with a focus on hiring, mentoring, and cultivating engineering excellence.
• Strong communication and documentation skills—able to synthesize complex technical topics for a variety of audiences and align stakeholders toward shared goals.
• Startup mindset. You thrive in ambiguity, adapt quickly, and are comfortable working hands-on across multiple layers of the tech stack.
• Relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate.

Nice To Haves

• Master of Science in Computer Science or Engineering.
• Experience building data-intensive or ML-heavy software products, including APIs for inference, data pipelines, and real-time analytics.
• Familiarity with API design (REST/gRPC/OpenAPI) and interfacing with AI model serving stacks (e.g., vLLM, Triton, custom TorchServe).
• Experience with secure software development and compliance in regulated environments (e.g., SOC2, HIPAA, FedRAMP).
• Contributions to open-source projects or strong technical thought leadership in the cloud-native or ML infrastructure communities.
• Experience building platforms or developer tools used by external customers or partners.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the software architecture and implementation roadmap for a scalable, modular AI infrastructure platform, focusing on performance, security, and reliability.
• Build and manage a high-caliber engineering team, including backend developers, platform engineers, and site reliability engineers, responsible for mentoring, hiring, and setting a culture of technical excellence and operational discipline.
• Own core services that power AI pipelines, including APIs for data ingestion and transformation, orchestration of model inference jobs, and integration with LLM orchestration layers and vector stores.
• Establish technical strategy and design standards that support rapid prototyping, automated testing, and code reuse across teams, defining best practices and leading by example in system design, code reviews, and architectural discussions.
• Lead on-premise deployment strategy, ensuring the stack is optimized for hybrid environments and managing challenges around air-gapped deployments, resource management, and update rollouts in constrained environments.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with AI engineering, product management, and customer success to align engineering priorities with product goals, translating high-level needs into deliverable milestones.
• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines and DevOps best practices, focusing on security, observability, rollback safety, and developer productivity.
• Develop and enforce SLAs/SLOs for critical services, putting in place monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices that ensure uptime and stability in enterprise-grade deployments.
• Stay on top of evolving technologies in distributed systems, containerization, service mesh, observability, and developer tooling—bringing in the best ideas to future-proof the platform.
• Other related functions as assigned.

Benefits

• Competitive health benefits (employee premiums covered at 100%, family premiums at 50%)
• Voluntary Vision, Dental, Life, and Disability insurance options
• Generous paid vacation, sick time, and holidays
• Teachers Retirement System of Texas, a defined benefit retirement plan, with 8.25% employer matching funds
• Additional Voluntary Retirement Programs: Tax Sheltered Annuity 403(b) and a Deferred Compensation program 457(b)
• Flexible spending account options for medical and childcare expenses
• Robust free training access through LinkedIn Learning plus professional conference opportunities
• Tuition assistance
• Expansive employee discount program including athletic tickets
• Free access to UT Austin's libraries and museums with staff ID card
• Free rides on all UT Shuttle and Austin CapMetro buses with staff ID card

What This Job Offers

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