Director, Engineering

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.

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.

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.

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 senior engineering talent — building teams from the ground up in competitive markets.

• Experience delivering in fast-paced, high-ambiguity environments with evolving platform dependencies and shifting priorities.

Good to Have

• Experience leading engineering teams building AI-native products (LLM integration, agentic systems, scoring pipelines, MCP tool design).

• Background in martech, customer data platforms, or dealer/automotive technology.

• Prior experience managing both backend and frontend engineering disciplines within the same org.

Exposure Temporal for durable workflow orchestration at the team level.

Perks & Benefits

• Competitive compensation and generous stock options.

• Medical insurance coverage.

• Work with some of the brightest minds from Silicon Valley's most dominant and successful companies.

Current Tekion Employees: Please apply via the Internal Job Board in Ashby.

Note: Tekion recently transitioned to a new recruiting tool and we appreciate your patience and feedback as we adjust to our new system!

Tekion is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, victim of violence or having a family member who is a victim of violence, the intersectionality of two or more protected categories, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

For more information on our privacy practices, please refer to our Applicant Privacy Notice here.

Important: Tekion will only contact candidates from an @tekion.com email address or through our applicant tracking system (no-reply@ashbyhq.com). We may also work with authorized recruiting partners from time to time. Tekion and its recruiting partners will never ask you to pay fees or send money for applications, interviews, training, or onboarding. If you receive a message that seems suspicious, please do not respond or share personal or financial information.