Director of Engineering - Brazil

Space Inch is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead our engineering function within a long-standing partnership with one of the largest investment managers in the U.S. Partnering closely with our CTO, you'll be the most senior engineering leader on the account: owning day-to-day operational and people leadership, serving as the senior engineering point of contact for the client's stakeholders, and driving AI adoption across the team. This client operates in a highly regulated environment with work spanning many technical stacks, so we want someone who thrives in that variety and brings real operational excellence and care for engineers to an agency environment.

This is first and foremost a people-leadership and communication role. We're looking for an exceptional communicator who earns the trust of engineers and senior client stakeholders alike. You must come from an engineering background, current or former, but hands-on technical depth isn't the primary requirement.

We're also still building out this account's leadership structure, so there's no layer of Engineering Managers under this role yet. You'll lead individual contributors and team leads directly and stay hands-on with delivery yourself, at least for now, with the opportunity to develop engineers on your team into Engineering Managers over time.

Our Mission, Vision, and Values

At Space Inch, we prioritize alignment with our clients and team, ensuring a deep understanding of their needs. We are committed to delivering exceptional work while supporting the personal and professional growth of our team members.

Working at Space Inch

• Our remote-first team of around 80+ people is based across the EU (mostly Croatia), the US, and Latin America, with a growing presence in Brazil.

• Occasional travel for client visits and company retreats.

• This role is embedded within a single long-standing client partnership, though you'll draw on Space Inch's broader engineering community and practices.

• We support work/life balance for our team.

Requirements

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10+ years in software development, with at least 5+ leading engineering teams, including technical delivery leadership (ideally in an agency, consultancy, or client-embedded environment). Distributed team experience is a plus.

• Exceptional communicator and mediator who bridges client demands with team reality, builds real trust with engineers, and handles sensitive topics (compensation, retention, disengagement, underperformance) directly and with care. Strong across written, async, live, and cross-cultural communication

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Proactive problem solver who spots delivery, scope, budget, and process breakdowns early (from PTO coverage gaps to missing test data) and fixes them without waiting for permission

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Hands-on, demonstrable fluency with AI as a working tool: You've personally driven AI adoption in an engineering team with measurable outcomes (tooling rolled out, productivity gains, initiatives delivered); your credibility comes from execution, not commentary

• Enough technical fluency across modern architecture, SDLC, and common stacks (e.g., React, Vue, Angular, Node.js, Python, Java, C#) to challenge assumptions, guide decisions, and turn vague client requests into execution plans alongside tech leads. You don't need to write production code

• Experience coordinating multiple teams or workstreams in parallel, with strong stakeholder management on ambiguous or contentious topics, plus staffing, onboarding, interviewing, and resource planning

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Strong commercial sensibility: translating technical work, operational fixes, and AI-driven gains into a value story clients understand and continue to invest in

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A systems thinker: organized enough to hold many threads, decisive enough to act without waiting for permission, self-aware enough to loop in leadership after. Experience with internal developer platforms, MCP-style tooling, or prototype-to-production workflows is a plus

Key Responsibilities

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People leadership, coaching, and retention: Build trust with engineers through regular 1:1s, candid feedback, and development support. Handle sensitive topics directly (compensation, disengagement, underperformance, burnout, departures) and resolve retention risks before they escalate.

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Client stakeholder management and partnership: Be the senior point of contact for the client, building trust with senior stakeholders, managing shifting priorities, and turning ambiguous requests (a prototype, an HTML mockup, a new app idea) into practical execution plans.

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Technical program coordination: Coordinate delivery across frontend, backend, DevOps, platform, and tooling workstreams; clarify ownership, align dependencies, and bridge communication gaps between internal teams and the client. Partner with tech leads on architecture and trade-offs.

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Resourcing and operational ownership: Oversee hiring, onboarding, and staffing; keep engineers productive through client delays; spot and fix delivery, budget, and process breakdowns before they reach the client.

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AI-driven team uplift: Lead a step-change in how the team uses AI (tooling, upskilling, workflow design) with standards tied to seniority and autonomy. Focus on measurable productivity and code-review quality, not adoption for its own sake.

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Decisive action and commercial storytelling: Propose and execute fixes without waiting for permission, keeping the CTO informed of what you're doing and why. Translate delivery metrics, technical decisions, and AI gains into a value narrative for the client.

Typical Challenges You'll Be Solving

• AI adoption that produces measurable outcomes, focused on actual productivity, code review quality, and autonomy.

• Turning ambiguous client requests into execution plans across multiple workstreams.

• Maintaining team morale and stability: keeping engineers motivated, engaged, and retention risk low through shifting client priorities, scope changes, or client access delays.

• Creating clarity in messy space: stepping into situations where domain ownership is unclear, bridging fragmented cross-team conversations, and making sure everyone understands what needs to be done.

• Balancing short-term delivery needs with longer-term team and technical health.

Qualities for Success

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Exceptional communicator: empathetic, honest, and transparent. Engineers trust your guidance, feel supported in 1:1s, and follow your lead when priorities shift.

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Credible in AI as a working tool, with practical experience to back it up.

• A systems thinker who designs how work happens, quickly spots broken communication loops or process gaps, and fixes them before they escalate.

• Comfortable making decisions and owning the outcome, even when the first attempt fails.

• Adapts communication style across coaching, escalation, and client conversations.

• Calm under client pressure, and doesn't pass that pressure to the team.

The Role Is Right for You If

• You lead through trust, presence, and communication as much as technical depth, and you're just as comfortable mediating and coaching as you are talking architecture.

• You're comfortable staying hands-on with delivery and team leadership while this account's structure is still being built out, rather than expecting a team of managers already in place.

• You see leading AI adoption as one of the most important things a senior engineering leader can do right now, and you want to help engineers navigate a profession that's changing under their feet.

• You enjoy turning ambiguity into action: spotting what isn't working, proposing a path, and trying it.

• You're at home in messy situations between people, delivery, client communication, and operations, and take ownership without being asked.

The Role Is Not Right for You If

• You want a primarily hands-on coding role.

• You'd rather lead through technical authority than through relationships, trust, and communication.

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