Director Of Engineering

Kognitos is at the forefront of revolutionizing the trillion-dollar hyper-automation market. Our mission is to redefine how software is built and maintained by leveraging cutting-edge multi-agent automation platforms. We are pioneering advancements in agentic workflows, enabling machines to reason, plan, and execute tasks in a deterministic fashion.

Our approach elevates debugging to English, bypassing traditional programming languages that struggle to adapt to runtime surprises. Kognitos is building "HAL"—but the friendly, helpful kind—to create systems that align AI safety with business value, solving challenges in efficient fine-tuning, multimodal reasoning, and real-world adaptability.

Our team includes top engineers from Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Pure Storage, and leading tech startups. Many of our engineers have studied at IIT, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UC Berkeley, University of Washington, UIUC, Caltech, and the University of Michigan.

With offices in San Jose, CA, and Bangalore, India, we’re building a global center of excellence in AI automation.

At Kognitos, you won’t just build software—you’ll help shape the future of AI-driven automation.

As Director of Engineering, you’ll help shape the next phase of Kognitos by growing and coaching a world-class team of engineers. You’ll be an early leader in a high-leverage role: balancing technical depth, people leadership, and cross-functional alignment — all while building in public and for scale.

We’re not looking for someone who just manages delivery — we want someone who builds accountable, motivated teams and partners with ICs to help them grow.

What You’ll Do

• Build & Lead: Grow and manage a team of engineers (ICs and team leads) focused on delivering product with velocity and quality.
  

• Coach & Develop: Be a force multiplier — helping engineers become better problem-solvers, better collaborators, and better humans.
  

• Partner Cross-Functionally: Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and the executive team to align technical decisions with company strategy.
  

• Drive Accountability: Set clear expectations, foster ownership, and ensure execution meets the bar without micromanaging.
  

• Bring Technical Rigor: While you won’t need to ship code daily, you’ll stay close to technical decisions, conduct reviews, and guide developer tooling and productivity systems.
  

• Shape Culture: You’ll help define what engineering leadership looks like at Kognitos — from hiring to rituals to how we scale values.
  

You Might Be a Fit If You:

• Have 5–10+ years in engineering leadership roles, including early-stage startup environments.
  

• Have experience coaching engineers and team leads — not just managing output but investing in people.
  

• Know how to scale engineering orgs from ~5 to 30+ people while maintaining strong execution and culture.
  

• Bring a technical background (you understand modern systems, distributed architecture, developer tooling) even if you don’t code daily.
  

• Can wear multiple hats — strategist, coach, executor — depending on the moment.
  

• Have a bias for action and clarity. You care about outcomes, not politics.
  

Tech Environment (Familiarity is a Bonus)

• Python, Node.js, TypeScript
  

• AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform
  

• GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Postgres
  

• Frontend: React, Next.js
  

Why Now

We're at a moment where the right leader can have massive leverage — in product, in culture, and in shaping how people experience engineering at Kognitos. If you want to build something real, with a deeply human-centered team, we’d love to talk.

Final note

You do not need to match all of the listed expectations to apply for this position. We are committed to building a team with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

Equal opportunities provider

Kognitos is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.