Director of Product Engineering

Purple Wave Auction is seeking an experienced and strategic Director of Product Engineering to lead their product engineering organization. This key leadership role is responsible for driving innovation, velocity, and quality across all product engineering teams, ensuring the delivery of exceptional software solutions that power Purple Wave's online auction business.

Responsibilities:

• Define the long-term strategy and vision for product engineering aligned with business goals
• Partner with engineering leaders to guide technology decisions and modern development practices
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement across all engineering teams
• Ensure alignment between team goals and business strategy
• Translate business requirements into clear engineering objectives
• Build and scale four departments: Mobile Engineering, Agility, Test Engineering, and Product Engineering
• Hire, mentor, and develop high-performing engineering managers and technical staff
• Drive a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and agile mindset
• Inspire and motivate teams to deliver innovative solutions with appropriate urgency
• Create clear career paths and development opportunities for engineering talent
• Establish policies and procedures to improve the software development lifecycle
• Enable results by improving and automating processes with clear definitions of success
• Remove impediments by collaborating with stakeholders where teams can't self-organize to reach resolution
• Ensure teams have the tools, resources, and support needed to succeed
• Foster collaboration across engineering teams and with other departments
• Coach leaders and managers throughout the enterprise on benefits of agile practices and successful implementation
• Support teams in modeling an agility mindset by promoting practical applications of agile principles
• Champion experimentation, inspection, and continuous improvement methodologies
• Drive adoption of best practices in software delivery and team collaboration
• Work closely with Product teams to deliver solutions that meet customer needs
• Ensure engineering teams understand business context and customer impact
• Balance technical excellence with business value and time-to-market
• Oversee mobile application strategy and web platform development
• Partner with Test Engineering to establish quality standards and automation strategies
• Ensure code quality, testing practices, and deployment processes meet organizational goals
• Drive metrics and visibility into engineering performance and delivery health
• Foster accountability for quality throughout the development process
• Collaborate with Platform Engineering, Data, and Infrastructure teams to ensure seamless delivery
• Partner with Product Management to align engineering capacity with business priorities
• Provide guidance and coaching to managers, leaders, and teams
• Serve as a bridge between technical teams and business leadership
• Administer expense and compensation budgets
• Make strategic decisions on tooling, technology investments, and vendor partnerships
• Optimize resource allocation across engineering initiatives
• Undertake additional assigned duties as requested
• Directly manage four department managers: Mobile Engineering, Agility, Test Engineering, and Product Engineering
• Define org structure and resource allocation with VP of IT
• Provide coaching, performance management, and career development

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Business, Engineering, or equivalent experience
• 10+ years in technology leadership, product management, or engineering roles
• 5+ years leading engineering or technical teams, including managing managers
• Strong technical acumen with ability to understand and discuss technical concepts and trade-offs
• Deep expertise in agile methodologies and software development lifecycle
• Proven track record building and scaling high-performing engineering organizations
• Experience with mobile development, web technologies, and modern software practices
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills
• Strong problem-solving abilities and business judgment
• Ability to inspire and motivate technical teams without being hands-on in code
• Track record of removing obstacles and enabling team success
• Applicants must be either a U.S. Citizen or eligible to work in the U.S
• Requires the ability to satisfactorily complete a background check
• Spanish speaking bi-lingual candidates are encouraged to apply
• Candidates may be requested to complete position specific skills assessments