Director, Software Engineering

Cognex Corporation•Natick, MA

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

Cognex is a global leader in industrial machine vision, with over 40 years of experience. We are seeking a Director of Software Engineering to lead the strategy, technical direction, and delivery of an Applied AI platform. This platform aims to revolutionize how customers configure, manage, and optimize industrial automation solutions in factory and logistics operations. This is a high-impact leadership role focused on transforming AI research into secure, reliable, and scalable production-grade capabilities. The role involves applied R&D, platform engineering, product delivery, and organizational leadership, creating significant customer value in demanding industrial environments. We operate on a hybrid schedule, with 3 days in the office and 2 days remote.

Requirements

15+ years of software engineering experience
5+ years in senior engineering leadership roles managing managers and/or multiple engineering teams
Proven track record of building high-performing organizations
Proven track record of delivering business-critical products
Proven track record of driving technical strategy
Track record of shipping and scaling complex platforms and cloud/online services in production
Experience leading R&D or applied-research efforts from concept to shipped product
Demonstrated experience turning ambiguous customer problems into shipped products, scalable products and technical strategy
Deep expertise in backend/cloud architecture, API design and platform engineering
Hands-on familiarity with modern AI application architectures, including LLMOps, agentic systems, tool integration, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), Model Context Protocol, and evaluation harness design, prompt management, and production observability
Strong strategic and execution-oriented mindset, with the ability to balance ambitious AI innovation against reliability, scalability, cost, and deployment constraints
Exceptional communication, influencing, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to align technical teams, executives, customers, and cross-functional partners around a shared vision and execution plan
Customer-focused leadership approach, with a passion for solving real-world customer problems through innovative software platforms and AI-driven experiences

Nice To Haves

Computer vision, machine learning inference, or edge/embedded deployment systems
Background in industrial automation, manufacturing, robotics, or logistics
Experience productizing AI capabilities at scale, beyond prototypes and proof-of-concepts
Experience working with developer platforms, APIs, SDKs, or ecosystems that enable other teams to build and innovate more quickly
Advanced degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field

Responsibilities

Set the technical vision and multi-year roadmap for a new Applied AI platform to simplify complex, multi-step customer workflows across Cognex’s product portfolio.
Direct applied R&D on emerging AI capabilities, with structured experimentation and prototyping and a clear path from research to production.
Lead architecture decisions spanning embedded devices, edge compute, and cloud services and infrastructure, ensuring seamless experiences across hybrid experiences.
Own the reliability, scalability, security, cost efficiency and operational excellences of the services that power the platform, including APIs, model-serving infrastructure, data pipelines, and connected experiences.
Establish the engineering standards, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and operational practices (SLAs, on-call, incident response) required to deliver trustworthy AI systems in production, balancing capability, reliability, latency, safety, and operating cost.
Partner with Product, R&D, UX, and Hardware organizations to turn ambiguous problems into shipped capabilities, on committed timelines.
Drive adoption of the platform across Cognex's product portfolio, enabling product teams to rapidly build and consume shared AI capabilities and services.
Track the fast-moving AI landscape and translate external advances into pragmatic bets for Cognex.
Drive cost efficiency, observability, and continuous delivery across cloud and hybrid (edge-plus-cloud) deployments, with privacy and security built in.
Grow, lead, and mentor a high-impact engineering organization, building a culture of ownership, technical rigor and execution excellence.

Benefits

health, dental, and vision insurance
a 401(k) retirement plan with company matching
employer-paid disability
family leave
life insurance
paid time off (including holidays)
optional voluntary benefits
recognition and wellness programs
annual bonus plan based on company and individual performance or a sales incentive plan
equity under the Cognex Equity Program