Director, Engineering

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ABOUT TEKION

Positively disrupting an industry that has not seen any innovation in over 50 years, Tekion has challenged the paradigm with the first and fastest cloud-native automotive platform that includes the revolutionary Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) for retailers, Automotive Enterprise Cloud (AEC) for manufacturers and other large automotive enterprises and Automotive Partner Cloud (APC) for technology and industry partners. Tekion connects the entire spectrum of the automotive retail ecosystem through one seamless platform. The transformative platform uses cutting-edge technology, big data, machine learning, and AI to seamlessly bring together OEMs, retailers/dealers and consumers. With its highly configurable integration and greater customer engagement capabilities, Tekion is enabling the best automotive retail experiences ever. Tekion employs close to 3,000 people across North America, Asia and Europe.

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Role Overview

We are seeking an Engineering Director to lead the Chennai engineering organization for 2 scrum teams, shared platform resources (Architect, ML Engineer, SDET), and a team of ~20 engineers across backend, frontend, AI, and QA disciplines. You will own delivery accountability, team health, technical quality, and the cross-team coordination that keeps two scrum teams moving in the same direction. You will be the primary technical counterpart to the US-based Product leadership, the direct interface to platform teams, and the person who sets the engineering culture for the entire team.

The work

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the full Chennai engineering organization (~20 engineers): two Scrum teams, two Engineering Managers, Staff/Senior engineers, Applied ML, and Staff SDET.
• Own delivery accountability: sprint cadence, cross-team dependency management, risk tracking, and executive reporting on engineering progress.
• Set and enforce technical standards: hexagonal architecture discipline, AI-native integration patterns, code quality gates, and observability standards across both teams.
• Act as the primary technical counterpart to US-based Product leadership — translate business requirements into engineering execution plans, surface trade-offs early, and maintain shared understanding of what is being built and why.
• Own the cross-team coordination interface to platform teams (Agentic Engine, Core Platform, ARC backend, Design) — ensuring product dependencies are tracked, escalated, and resolved on schedule.
• Hire, develop, and retain top engineering talent: own the full hiring pipeline, define career ladders, conduct performance reviews, and make compensation decisions.
• Drive the technical roadmap for Phase 2 in partnership with the ML Architect, Applied Scientist, and Product leadership — shaping the next wave of AI capabilities.
• Maintain technical depth: actively participate in architecture reviews, challenge design decisions, and unblock engineers on complex distributed systems and AI integration challenges.
• Build and sustain a high-trust, high-accountability engineering culture where engineers feel ownership, psychological safety, and pride in their craft.

Who they want

Skills & Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience with 5+ years of engineering leadership — managing managers and leading teams of 15+ engineers.
• Deep technical background in Java backend systems, distributed microservices, and event-driven architecture — able to engage credibly in architecture reviews and design decisions.
• Proven track record building and operating SaaS platforms on AWS with multi-database stacks (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Elasticsearch, Redis/Aerospike).
• Demonstrated experience with hexagonal architecture at scale — enforcing domain isolation as teams and services grow.
• Strong cross-functional leadership: experience working closely with Product Management, Design, and executive stakeholders across geographies (US-India distributed teams).
• Track record of recruiting and developing senio