At Factbird we build technology that connects the digital and physical worldsand we do it with care curiosity and collaboration. Our products live at the intersection of Cloud SaaS AI and hardware and behind them is a growing engineering organization that values people just as much as performance.
Were now looking for a Director of Engineering (SaaS AI & Firmware) to help us shape the next chapter of our engineering journeysomeone who loves building strong teams thoughtful processes and scalable technology that truly works in the real world.
Youll report to our CTPO and partner closely with Product Operations and other senior stakeholders.
The role
You will lead our engineering efforts at the intersection of Cloud SaaS Artificial Intelligence and physical Hardware. This is a dual-focus leadership role: you will oversee a strong engineering department with the mission to foster a community-first culture.
Youll create an engineering environment where teams feel connected supported and proud of their workwhile also ensuring that our software and hardware move in sync. Youll help us design an AI-enhanced development lifecycle balance speed with quality and translate strategy into outcomes that matter to both customers and the business.
Key Responsibilities
People & Culture Leadership
- Build Community: Transition the department from a working group into a transparent collaborative engineering community where knowledge sharing is the default.
- Talent Development: Implement clear career ladders professional development paths and mentorship programs to coach the next generation of technical leads.
- Strategic Recruitment: Drive hiring strategies that prioritize both technical excellence and cultural alignment within a competitive market.
Operational Excellence & Agile SDLC
- Process Engineering: Design and implement a robust Agile SDLC that bridges the gap between rapid SaaS continuous deployment and the more methodical release cycles of firmware.
- AI-Enhanced Workflow: Lead the AI-first internal roadmap integrating AI tools into the development lifecycle (e.g. automated code reviews AI-driven testing and predictive sprint planning) to accelerate output.
- Performance Metrics: Define and track KPIs that measure team health delivery quality and velocity (e.g. DORA metrics) to drive continuous improvement.
Strategic and Operational Technical Oversight
- Bridge the Gap: Align the SaaS/AI team with the Firmware team to ensure hardware-software parity and prevent siloed development.
- AI Product Strategy: Drive the implementation of LLMs and machine learning as core customer-facing features ensuring data privacy and ethical standards are met.
- SaaS development: Oversee the architecture of a scalable high-availability SaaS platform while championing modern DevOps practices and cloud-native development.
- Firmware Excellence: Provide high-level technical oversight for embedded systems and firmware development and ensure rigorous QA and testing protocols for firmware components.
- Resource & Budget Management: Balance long-term innovation with immediate product stability managing budgets and headcount across both hardware and software domains.
- Business Acumen: Working closely with Product Management and the CTPO to ensure tight alignment between development effort and business value.
What were looking for
SaaS while maintaining the rigorous precision required for firmware development. Your goal is to architect an efficient AI-enhanced SDLC that ensures our hardware and software teams move in lockstep to deliver a seamless ecosystem.
The Ideal Professional Background:
- The Hybrid Leader: Proven experience managing software teams with a deep enough understanding of embedded systems/firmware to provide meaningful technical guidance.
- Agile Mastery: Deep expertise in Scrum Kanban or Lean methodologies specifically in environments where software and hardware must ship together.
- AI Fluency: Practical experience implementing AI/ML models within a commercial product and using AI to optimize internal development processes.
The Ideal Leadership Style:
- Servant-Leadership: A track record of developing employees and scaling teams through coaching rather than just task management.
- Systems Thinking: The ability to identify and remove systemic bottlenecks in the development lifecycle.
- Context Switching: Comfortable moving between a high-level SaaS architecture discussion and a low-level hardware constraint meeting.
Why Factbird
People are at the heart of everything we build. We believe great products come from empowered teamsand we work hard to create an environment where you can do your best work and have space for life beyond it.
Heres what you can look forward to:
- Flexible working hours: We trust you to manage your time. Life isnt one-size-fits-all and neither is work.
- Competitive salary: We offer compensation that reflects your skills experience and impact.
- Internet reimbursement: Stay connected and productive wherever you choose to work from.
- Thoughtful human onboarding: Well support you step by step giving you the context tools and guidance you need to feel confident from day one.
- A career path that grows with you: Through bi-yearly Individual Development Plan conversations well work together to shape a career journey that fits your ambitions.
- Company-wide kickoffs & team days: We regularly come together across teams and regions to connect celebrate and align on whats next.
- A global inclusive culture: Were proud of our diverse backgrounds and perspectives and we actively celebrate them in how we work and collaborate.
Wed love to hear from you
If this role feels like a match wed be excited to hear from you and explore how you could help shape the future of data collection and production monitoring at Factbird.
And if someone in your network comes to mind who might be a great fit feel free to share this opportunity with them.
Have questions You can always reach out at
At Factbird we believe that great work starts with people feeling respected valued and included. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a workplace where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.
All employment decisions at Factbird are made based on business needs role requirements and individual qualifications without discrimination based on gender gender identity or expression age disability marital or family status nationality ethnic or social origin religion or belief sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected under applicable European and local employment laws.
We celebrate diversity in all its forms and believe that different backgrounds perspectives and experiences make our teams stronger and our work better. We warmly encourage all qualified candidates to apply and to bring their whole selves to Factbird.