Director, Software Engineering (Partner Platform)

Niche is the leader in school search, aiming to simplify the process of researching and enrolling in schools. They are seeking a Director of Engineering to lead the Partner Experience organization, focusing on enhancing partner onboarding and reporting through engineering excellence.

Responsibilities:

• Learn about Niche by meeting with various team members to learn more about our company through our Onboarding meetings
• Meet all direct reports and key cross-functional partners; build an initial read on team strengths and gaps
• Get deep on the partner-facing product surfaces, current tech stack, and delivery patterns across both teams
• Understand the partner experience end to end — onboarding speed, lead pacing, platform engagement — and where the biggest engineering leverage points are
• Form an initial point of view on the teams' AI tooling adoption and where the gaps are
• Present your assessment of the organization's engineering health — delivery, architecture, team org, AI readiness — to the CTO and Sr. Director of Product
• Align with product leadership on near-term technical priorities and any pressing architectural decisions
• Identify the top 2–3 things you'd change in the first half of your tenure and propose a plan
• Begin actively coaching EMs on embedding AI-native practices into their teams' day-to-day workflows
• Own the engineering roadmap and resourcing for both teams with full confidence
• Have a defined velocity measurement framework in place that accounts for AI-augmented output
• Be actively leading at least one meaningful initiative to accelerate agentic engineering adoption
• Have established a strong operating rhythm with the product lead, CTO, and Sr. Director of Product

Requirements:

• 8+ years in software engineering, with at least 3+ years managing engineering managers
• Demonstrated, hands-on experience driving a team's transition to AI-assisted or agentic engineering workflows — building the culture, tooling, and measurement systems, not just personal AI usage
• Track record of shipping high-quality product at scale in a fast-moving, cross-functional environment
• Strong communicator — able to represent engineering credibly to product and GTM partners and translate fluidly between technical and business language
• Experience working alongside embedded data engineers, with meaningful exposure to modern data tooling (dbt, Snowflake, or similar)
• Systematic thinker who brings structure to ambiguous problems without over-processing
• Experience in EdTech, marketplace, or consumer platform businesses
• Familiarity with spec-driven development (SDD) or similar AI-paired engineering operating models
• Experience in B2B2C businesses with CRM-integrated product surfaces
• Exposure to partner-facing reporting systems, data pipelines, or lead delivery infrastructure